Brijanee Moore (center) had 27 points on Saturday to lead St. Mary’s of Stockton past Kennedy of Sacramento 63-47 in Sac-Joaquin Section D1 final. She’s joined by Onome Jemerigbe and Unique Coleman in photo above.
By Mark Tennis
Contributing: Harold Abend
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For the first-ever CIF Northern California Open Division, after collecting all scores through Saturday night, here are our choices of which girls teams we think will be in the bracket:
Archbishop Mitty (San Jose) 24-6
CIF Central Coast Section Open Division champion, Division II state champion from last season, ranked No. 16 overall in the state.
Bishop O’Dowd (Oakland) 26-3
CIF North Coast Section Division III champion, Division III state champion from last season, ranked No. 3 overall in the state. Note: We also think in the end that there will be no eighth team selected for the bracket and that the Dragons will be top seed and get first-round bye.
Carondelet (Concord) 26-3
CIF North Coast Section Division II champion, Division II NorCal semifinalist from last season, ranked No. 12 overall in the state.
Miramonte (Orinda) 28-2
CIF North Coast Section Division III runner-up, Division III NorCal finalist from last season, ranked No. 10 overall in the state.
Sacramento 27-4
CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II champion, Division III NorCal semifinalist from last season, ranked on the bubble overall in the state.
St. Mary’s (Berkeley) 29-4
CIF North Coast Section Division IV champion, Division IV NorCal runner-up from last season, ranked No. 7 overall in the state.
St. Mary’s (Stockton) 29-2
CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I champion, Division II runner-up in NorCal last season, Division II state champion from 2011, ranked No. 6 overall in the state.
What We Hope Happens
Again, that there is no eighth seed. After these seven, Salesian of Richmond is next best team but the Pride won’t be in the open division because they would be the fifth from the NCS (one over the limit). Some have speculated that Salesian also could get Miramonte’s spot for the open, but that would be hard to do with Miramonte owning a 15-point win over Salesian.
Other candidates for the eighth slot could be Kennedy of Sacramento (eligible to be taken and runner-up to St. Mary’s in Sac-Joaquin D1 this year after playing in NorCal D1 final last season) or Sacred Heart Cathedral of San Francisco (owns two wins over Mitty). We also heard on Friday at Sac-Joaquin finals that Brookside Christian (D5 state champ from last year) was a candidate. That would be downright silly since O’Dowd already beat that team 70-39 and both SHC or Kennedy are clearly better. In the end, we just hope that the CIF will leave that eighth position open.
Projected top seeds in the other NorCal girls divisions
Kennedy of Sacramento (24-6) in Division I. If by chance Kennedy gets pulled up into the open, then it’s Monte Vista of Danville (24-5).
St. Francis of Mountain View (22-8) in Division II.
Enterprise of Redding (27-1) in Division III.
Salesian of Richmond (27-7) in Division IV.
Brookside Christian of Stockton (27-4) in Division V.
Comments or corrections? Email markjtennis@gmail.com.
