Central Catholic, Modesto Christian get green light to play at home

The Central Catholic and Modesto Christian high school boys basketball teams will host CIF Northern California Regional playoff games in their gymnasiums Wednesday and Friday, according to the schools’ athletic directors.

The CIF requires that Open Division games be played in gyms that seat at least 1,400, while 600 is necessary for Division IV contests.

But according to former Sac-Joaquin Section Commissioner Pete Saco, now the state tournament director for basketball, those numbers are really just a guideline.

“We take a look at potential crowds and see how many fans the other school is going to bring,” Saco said. “The perception is that you need huge gyms for first-round games, when in reality you don’t. And the CIF doesn’t want to force schools to move and incur costs that just don’t make sense.”

Central Catholic (25-5), which defeated West Campus of Sacramento 47-46 Saturday for its first section title since 1988, will host Kennedy of Richmond on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Division IV.

The Raiders’ gym, with bleachers on just one side of the court, holds about 400; construction of the school’s 1,100-seat Mark Gallo Health and Fitness Center will not be completed until May.

“As of now, we’re good through the second round,” athletic director Billy Hylla said of the Raiders, who could play three home games with a 16-team field. “If we were to win that game, we’d have to look again at who we’re playing, contact them to see how many they expect to bring, and see if it works.”

Central Catholic will rope off a section of the bleachers for Kennedy fans until 15 minutes before tipoff. After that, those seats will be available to anybody.

Hylla started making calls Monday to try to find a bigger venue for a potential third-round game. In 2012, the Raiders hosted Bentley of Lafayette at Big Valley Christian High.

The Crusaders (30-1), winners of 30 consecutive games since dropping their season opener to Folsom 53-51 on Nov. 28, will host St. Francis of Mountain View on Friday at 7 p.m. in an Open Division matchup. Modesto Christian’s gym seats 800.

“As of right now, we’re playing at MC,” Crusaders athletic director Greg Pearce said. “But starting (today), in the event we win Friday, I’ll be looking for gyms that are available in our area.”

Modesto Christian has played at Ripon High and Modesto Junior College, but Pearce said he’ll turn first to a fellow Modesto Metro Conference school.

Pearce might want to cross Enochs athletic director Randy Rubio off his list. The Crusaders shot well above 50 percent at every MMC gym except for Enochs, where they hit just 31 of 80 shots (39 percent).

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 2:42 PM with the headline "Central Catholic, Modesto Christian get green light to play at home."