Five Merced County high school basketball, soccer teams will compete in NorCal Regionals
Five Merced County high school basketball and soccer teams will compete in the NorCal Regional Playoffs this week.
The Atwater High girls and Stone Ridge Christian boys basketball teams both earned home games.
The Falcons (24-7) earned a No. 8 seed in the Division III girls basketball bracket and will host No. 9 Pioneer of San Jose at 7 p.m.
Atwater was surprised to earn a home game after losing to Vanden in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II semifinals.
“I was pretty excited,” said Falcons coach JR Davis. “A lot of people were saying we weren’t going to get a home game but I had faith. Playing us at home is tough.”
The Falcons had a bit of an adventure traveling home from Vanden after their semifinal game. Their bus was involved in a collision on Highway 4 in Stockton as they tried to merge onto Highway 99.
Nobody was injured, but the collision caused a two-hour delay as the CUP officers went from person to person on the bus to make sure everyone was uninjured and to get their information.
Atwater didn’t make it back to school until 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Davis said he gave his players the day off that day but they’ve been preparing for the NorCal playoffs the rest of the week.
The Stone Ridge Christian boys are the No. 2 seed in Division VI NorCal Regional playoffs after winning their first section title with a 91-77 victory over Valley Christian in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI championship on Friday at UC Davis.
The Knights (23-8) will host No. 7 Point Arena (18-7) on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
SRC coach Tyler Rogers likes the way his team is playing at the end of the season.
“I think we’re peaking at the right time,” Rogers said. “I think guys are comfortable in their spots. Obviously we played well at the section championship. We want to see how far we can take this.”
The Knights celebrated their section title with the team, coaches and parents meeting up at Texas Roadhouse in Elk Grove for a celebratory dinner on Friday night.
Rogers says Stone Ridge Christian had a party of about 40 to 45 people.
“It was nice to have all our parents, coaches and players together,” Rogers said. “We’ve traveled well this year. We’ve made trips to Texas and Santa Barbara and had plenty of parents their to support us. It was nice embracing the win with family.”
Soccer
The Golden Valley boys soccer team hopes the No. 3 seed is a good luck draw for them. The Cougars (21-2-2) came from the No. 3 seed to win the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship after a 4-2 win over top-seed Del Oro on Saturday.
The Cougars are the No. 3 seed in the NorCal Division II bracket and will host No. 6 Las Lomas of Walnut Creek, which won the North Coast Section Divsion II championship.
The match will start at 5 p.m. at Veterans Stadium on Tuesday.
Golden Valley features one of the top goal scorers in the country in Carlos Miranda, who scored two goals in the championship match to bring his season total to 45 goals on the season, which ranks fifth nationally.
The Pacheco boys finished runner-ups in Division III with a 2-1 loss to Valley in the Sac-Joaquin Section championship.
Pacheco (18-5-2) is the No. 6 seed and will open at No. 3 Justin Garza (14-11-3) of Fresno on Tuesday at Koligian Stadium at 5 p.m.
The Hilmar girls soccer team earned the No. 1 seed in the NorCal Division V playoffs and will host No. 8 Caruthers (14-14-3) at 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
Hilmar (25-5-2) is coming off a 2-0 win over Argonaut in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division V championship match.
Brisa Gonzales leads the Yellowjackets with 29 goals scored this season.
Wrestling
Four Merced County wrestlers placed at the CIF Boys and Girls State Championships in Bakersfield this past weekend.
Leading the way was Los Banos High junior Brokton Borelli, who reached the 190-pound state finals.
Canyon Springs’ Sonny Kling defeated Borelli 11-2 in the finals to win the state championship.
Borelli was seeded No. 3 in his weight class and won his first four matches to earn his spot in the final.
Merced High had three wrestlers place, including Evelyn Vargas, who finished third in the 190-pound girls division.
Nathaniel Granados placed fifth in the 106-pound boys division and teammate Elijah Valencia placed eighth in the 113-pound division.
