Prep basketball: Division I playoff field might be deepest ever with top teams and talent

The playoff look and feel arrived early for area high school basketball, particularly the boys, and especially in Division I.

D1 is known in prep sports in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section as the big boys, the largest-enrollment schools that generally field the top talents, the most accomplished coaches and the most storied programs.

Down the stretch of this wildly entertaining regular season, gyms have been stuffed to the rafters with fans and bands. The student sections have been boisterous and creative, often pushing the limit of what’s allowed as administrators assigned to each group offer up a stern look as to suggest, “OK, tone it down a bit, guys.”

And the celebrations are already here. On Wednesday, the upstart Monterey Trail Mustangs held off storied Grant 67-65 to clinch a share of the program’s first league championship.

Mustangs coach Robert Fields thrust his finger into the air, signaling No. 1, and then celebrated with his equally giddy players in the dressing room moments later. Students and fans moments earlier flooded the court to celebrate with their Mustangs.

Beating Grant means something. The Pacers won the last two Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championships and are in the D1 bracket this season. So is defending D1 champion Modesto Christian. And Bee No. 1 Folsom, which just clinched its sixth consecutive Sierra Foothill League championship. And No. 2 Jesuit, which has star power in McDonald’s All-American Andrej Stojakovic, the 6-foot-7 scoring wonder.

Jesuit proved it was a good team without the son of the former Kings All-Star, but that it is a great one with him healthy.

No. 3 Inderkum has enjoyed its best two seasons in school history of late, a deep and talented team. Capital Christian has shown flashes of promise with its skilled team, led by guards Jayden Teat and Gavin Sykes.

The regular season concludes this week, and for D1 in particular, the race to the section finals at Golden 1 Center figures to be frenetic, fantastic and fun.

“Winning our first league, that’s special, and it’s been a long road to get here,” Fields said. “Now, we’re in the dance, the playoffs, and that’s when it really matters and when it really gets intense.”

Dance will be crowded

Laguna Creek is also in that dance. The Cardinals on Friday basked in their playoff-like moment. They defeated Monterey Trail 55-52, and players raced around the court as if they’d accomplished something special. They did. High school players do their best to look the part of unemotional and tough before games, sometimes during, but afterwards, they’re kids again.

With that victory, Laguna Creek forced a three-way tie for the championship with Grant and Monterey Trail, so long as none of those teams stumble in regular-season finales against teams they have already beaten. Each of those teams split with one another, making for the best Metro League race in years.

It wasn’t the first league championship for the Cardinals, but it was the largest crowd in the six years that Laguna Creek athletic director Jon Ussery has worked with the school. Fans had to be turned away. Inside, one had to yell to be heard over the band and crowd noise.

“Isn’t this awesome?” Ussery said before the tip. A moment later, Laguna Creek coach Mike Gill, an alum of the school, marveled at his student rooting section, which included students in coveralls with Cardinal red stripes.

“You have to be a little crazy to wear that, and that’s why they’re our Cardinal Crazies,” the coach said.

Star players face off

The D1 field will also include a formidable dark horse in Sheldon, which is often the favorite in this bracket. The Huskies have reached 10 section finals since 2010 with six championships, all under coach Joey Rollings.

The season has already included ambitious nonleague scheduling, and the theme will carry into the playoffs.

Folsom has beaten Jesuit and Inderkum has downed Capital Christian. Inderkum has a win over Capital Christian and will host Monterey Trail on Wednesday in another intriguing nonleague showdown that very well could be a playoff preview.

Some of these titanic games of late have included star players matching up, pals from their AAU days squaring off for bigger prizes.

On Wednesday, it was Monterey Trail’s 6-foot-4 Varick Lewis often going head-to-head with Grant’s terrific lead guard Kiku Parker. Parker had the ball in the closing seconds, sizing it all up, and then he bolted down the lane to win it, but the shot was contested and just missed at the buzzer, and then Mustangs bedlam.

Parker wasn’t the only one deflated. His proud pop, Kiku Parker Sr., went face down on the court, plopping forward from his front-row, midcourt seat, feeling for his son. That was a playoff look if there ever was one.

Two nights later, it was Lewis going head-to-head against Laguna Creek’s marvelous 6-3 junior guard star Dante Walls. Back and forth they went. Walls was hot early and Lewis cold. Then Lewis heated up in the fourth quarter, but it was Walls and company who celebrated. Among those celebrating was KJ Ramey, an unsung shooter for Laguna Creek who had his best game of the season, scoring 17 points, including big shots down the stretch, cool as can be.

Talent and depth

In the playoffs, every star will have to up their game and every role player will have to do his part and then some. Folsom has no elite scorer, but it has a lead guard in Micah Johnston who gets everyone involved, and the Bulldogs are a wonderfully sound and fundamental team, staples under longtime coach Mike Wall. Folsom put on a clinic in taking apart Jesuit on Jan. 14, rolling to a 24-4 first-quarter lead and prevailing 68-47.

Stojakovic didn’t play in the Folsom contest, out with a bad ankle. He chatted it up with coach Wall before the game with the suggestion that the teams may see each other in the playoffs. Stojakovic is capable of dropping in 40 points, or dropping in an assist to any number of capable teammates, including Reid Jones, Kevin Haupt, Ahjani Lewis and Cole Epperson.

Inderkum coach Fred Wilson has all sorts of tall guards to look to, including Jermaine Haliburton, Jalen Glenn, Isaiah Chandavong and energizer Jeremiah Butler, as the Tigers seek the program’s first section finals berth.

Monterey Trail is a young team led by a senior star in Lewis, who is headed to Long Beach State on scholarship. His coach, the excitable Fields, speaks the same theme as his D1 coaching peers in promoting his top player and team in general.

“Varick does it all, not just score, and I can’t say enough positive things about him,” Fields said. “I want the entire city to come see him play. This guy is something.”

So are all of the others in this championship chase.