Playoff Notebook: Wrestling regionals, soccer seeding and more
In an effort to ensure winter sport teams are able to finish their league schedules, the California Interscholastic Federation Sac-Joaquin Section extended its end-of-season dates for wrestling, soccer and basketball.
The section added one day to the end of the team portion of the wrestling season. The new date, Jan. 27, allowed leagues an extra day for league team duals, as league champions qualified for the section’s Wrestling Team Duals Championships.
The two additional winter sports each had their seasons extended three days.
Soccer’s end-of-season date moved from Feb. 4 to Feb. 7 and basketball’s was moved from Feb. 11 to Feb. 14.
According to the section’s website, it decided to make the change “due to all of the postponements and cancellations we’re currently experiencing during this COVID-19 surge.”
This comes at a time when teams are finding ways to finish the regular season by any means thanks to rescheduled games.
Gregori girls basketball played back-to-back games against Downey on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 during a stretch where coach Marissa Shull said they will play seven games in 13 days. Their final game is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 12 when they host Turlock.
Downey High’s girls team played the bulk of its CCAL schedule during the final two weeks of January, including a stretch of four games in five days.
The Knights started league play 4-0 but have since lost three straight CCAL games. They currently hold the league’s final playoff spot with a league record of 4-3. They will play league leader Pitman and the league’s two bottom seeds, Turlock and Modesto, in their final three games.
Modesto Christian boys basketball will play its last regular season game on Saturday against the Sacramento Bee’s No. 1 ranked team, Inderkum. The game was originally scheduled for last weekend.
Sac-Joaquin Section releases soccer brackets: On Tuesday afternoon, the Sac-Joaquin Section released its 2022 soccer playoff pairings. Three Stanislaus District teams, two boys and one girls, earned No. 1 seeds. Ripon High’s girls team received the top seed in Division IV and will get a first-round bye. They will play the winner of No. 8 West Park and No. 9 Livingston.
On the boys side, Patterson, which finished the regular season 17-0-1 and 12-0 in Central California Conference play, earned No. 1 in Division III and Riverbank, the second-place team in the Trans-Valley League, will sit atop the Division V bracket.
(Full Soccer Playoff Brackets: Boys | Girls)
Seven other teams will have first-round home games, including five on the girls side and two on the boys. Modesto High earned a four seed in Division I and will host Folsom at Downey High.
CCAL champion Pitman High earned a No. 2 seed in Division II and will host No. 15 Bear Creek in their playoff opener.
Boys playoffs start Feb. 10 and the girls begin Feb. 11.
Divisional and Regional playoffs kick off individual wrestling postseason: Individual wrestling league champions were crowned Friday, Feb. 4, and Saturday, Feb. 5. Now, boys and girls wrestling teams move on to Divisionals. Boys Divisionals will be held at various locations around the Sac-Joaquin Section, while the girls North Regional Qualifiers will be at Natomas High School in Sacramento and South Regional Qualifiers will be at Central Valley High School in Ceres.
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Pitman girls soccer CCAL champs: The Pride ended their season with a 6-0-1 record, securing a 17-2-2 overall record and 8-0-1 record in the CCAL. For the third consecutive season, Pitman is the CCAL regular season champion.
The Pride are led by goalkeeper Mya Sanchez, an Oregon State signee, sophomore Lillyana Rodriguez, who leads the team with 16 goals, and second-leading scorer, senior Isabella Green.
Pitman is looking to make a deep run in the playoffs this season as the second seed in Division II. During its first league title season, the Pride lost to Granite Bay in a penalty shootout in the quarterfinals of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II Playoffs.
Beyer girls soccer wins Western Athletic Conference title: The Patriots ended their season on a six-game win streak with all eight of their wins this year coming in WAC league play. They have outscored their opponents 63-16 and have a 3-1 record in away games, which could be important as they will travel to Lincoln High School as the No. 9 seed in Division III.
This is Beyer’s fourth top-two league finish and its first league championship since going 14-0 in the 2018-19 season.
