State Northern California Division IV Semifinals
Tuesday's game
Central Catholic, Modesto (26-7) at Palma (24-4), 7 p.m.
The target is on the Chieftains back this year as the two teams get reacquainted in a rematch of last season's semifinals.
The underdogs on the road last year, Palma went to Modesto and ended the Raiders season 66-59 in what head coach Kelley Lopez called arguably the best game his squad played all season.
Palma will need another big effort against a Central Catholic squad that has rattled off 11 straight wins, including the SAC Joaquin Section championships.
The Raiders have the distinction of beating Half Moon Bay 70-54 Saturday to reach the semifinals. Palma split a pair of games with Half Moon Bay back in December.
As dynamic as two-time Gabilan Division Most Valuable Player Jamaree Bouyea has been for Palma all season, Nikhil Manimaram is averaging 24 points a game in the Nor Cal tournament.
Despite playing with two badly sprained fingers in his right hand, Manimaram hit the games final 11 points last Saturday against Menlo, finishing with a season high 30.
While Manimaram was icing his fingers last Saturday in the third quarter, Garrett Maker stepped up with six clutch points to keep Palma in command.
Five players are averaging over 10 points a game for Central Catholic, including Jarred Rice at 15.8, while 6-foot-5 Coner Felton is dropping in 11.1 points and pulling down 10.3 rebounds a game.
The Raiders have scored 80 or more points in six of their last nine games, while Palma is averaging 75 points a game in the Northern California playoffs.
The Chieftains will take a 35 game home winning streak into the semifinals.
John Devine has been writing about high school sports in Monterey County since, well, practically since he was an athlete at King City in the days just after leather helmets. In PrepNation, John has even more in-depth analysis of the latest results and news he's brought to you in The Herald and in his weekly videos.
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1 comment:
Luckily the game is at Palma. I heard that Central Catholic had 21 free throw attempts and made 18 in the last 8 minutes of the game. I believe there were approx. 40 free throw by Central Catholic in the game to a much lower HMB count attempts (believe 9). It seems the refs(although believe they are neutral CCS officials) were calling everything at the end. One person at the game seemed to feel the calls were very one sided. In any event, Palma will need to play good defense and hopefully the officials let the players play the game. The game against HMB was much closer than the score, so if Palma plays a good game, they have a good shot at prevailing. If they do win, the next team they play will be at another level higher.
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