Two of this week’s NorCal/SoCal players of the week are Harper Peterson (left) from Whitney of Rocklin and Carson Brown from Tesoro of Las Flores. Photos: Twitter.com & Hudl.com.
This will be the final foursome for basketball for this season as all of the Tuesday playoff games makes it difficult to get these done in a timely fashion. We’ll be switching to baseball and softball next week. For this group, we hit Marin County and Placer County for the two NorCal honorees while for the two in SoCal it’s Orange County and L.A. County.
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Notes: For these honors, we consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Harper Peterson (Whitney, Rocklin) Jr.
You don’t usually find a stat star or worthy player of the week nominee from a 36-33 contest, but we sure did with Peterson. We also find her at a school in Placer County that used the experience of playing in difficult games with league foes like Folsom, Oak Ridge and Del Oro to its advantage in last week’s CIF Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs.
First, the game was a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D2 final played at the Golden 1 Center where shooting performances are usually not very good. Second, Whitney came through with an upset win over top seed Christian Brothers of Sacramento, which was 29-2 entering the contest. Even with the low score, Peterson was a dominating presence with 21 points, eight rebounds and three blocks.
A 6-foot-3 post player who has several D1 college offers, Peterson also has been the leading scorer for the Wildcats with 13.3 ppg. She and the team will have a tough NorCal D2 opening round game on Tuesday as the 19-11 Wildcats will be hosting 19-9 San Joaquin Memorial of Fresno, which has been in the State TOP 25 rankings earlier this season.
Peterson, who has been a varsity player since her freshman year, has reported current offers from Cal, Duke and Ohio State.
Semetri Carr (No. 2) celebrates with his teammates after Branson won NCS D3 title. Photo: @Bransonhoops / Twitter.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Boys Basketball Player of the Week
Semetri Carr (Branson, Ross) Soph.
The picturesque school along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Marin County is our place to go for this week’s NorCal Boys Player of the Week. The Bulls are known for boys basketball and they’ve got a real gem coming up with Carr, who is just a sophomore.
The 6-foot guard, who checked in at No. 65 in the Class of 2025 state player rankings we did several weeks ago, had his outside shot working in the CIF North Coast Section D3 championship game against Pinole Valley of Pinole. Semetri sizzled for 36 points as Branson won, 69-50. The team will be D2 for this week’s NorCal playoffs with a game at home on Tuesday vs St. Francis of Mountain View.
Carr has been Branson’s top scorer in recent weeks, including 25 points in a win against San Marin of Novato that clinched the Marin County Athletic League championship. Along with junior teammate Jhase Butler, the Bulls will be taking a 27-3 record into the regional round. Carr and Butler also could push Branson to even more elite levels of competition in next year’s playoffs.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Boys Basketball Player of the Week
Carson Brown (Tesoro, Las Flores) Sr.
Southern Orange County east of 1-5 is where we land to find our last SoCal hoops honoree for the boys for this season. It’s there where we almost went last week, but decided to go there for sure this time.
Brown has been a hot-shooting guard for the Titans all season and he had another top-notch outing in their 54-35 victory over Orange Lutheran in last Saturday’s CIF Southern Section D2AA championship game. Brown finished with 36 points and on defense he helped hold the Lancers to their lowest point total of the season.
In the semifinals of the bracket, Brown led Tesoro to a 68-65 victory against Culver City with 39 points. He also had 22 when the Titans earned a more grinding 40-37 win vs Rancho Verde of Moreno Valley in the quarterfinals.
Carson also broke the Tesoro school career scoring record in that win vs Rancho Verde. Heading into this week’s first round matchup in the CIF SoCal D2 playoffs for the 29-4 Titans, Brown has scored 1,449 career points. He and the team have all of the similarities to the Foothill of Tustin squad that went to the CIF D2 state final last season.
Hannah Lising (on the right) celebrates with her teammates after Poly won CIF L.A. City Section title. Photo: @CIFLACS / Twitter.com.
Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week
Hannah Lising (Poly, Sun Valley) Jr.
Poly High of Sun Valley is known in hoops for being the alma-mater of Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich, a 1961 grad who came along just a few years after the current campus in the San Fernando Valley was opened in 1957. The Parrots had never won a CIF L.A. City Section title in girls basketball before last Saturday and they have Hannah primarily to thank for that.
Lising is a junior guard who has been averaging 17.9 points per game, but in the section final against LACES of Los Angeles she came through for a career high of 35 points that sparked Poly to a 67-64 overtime win. Hannah had one stretch in the game in which she scored 12 straight points and she also was effective getting to the free throw line and making her free throws (ending 15 of 19 according to the L.A. Daily News).
Part of the reason that Lising had to have a game like that for Poly to win is that her twin sister, Heart Lising, another one of the Parrots’ leading players, had to sit out the game for being ejected in the previous playoff game. Hannah and Heart and the rest of the 23-5 squad will play next on Tuesday at home against St. Margaret’s of San Juan Capistrano in the first round of the CIF SoCal D4 playoffs.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle.
