Smith SD 223

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Paul Smith: San Diego Division I
Playoff Preview--(February 23, 1998)

As you know by now, Paul Smith is the assistant varisty coach at Helix High, the champions of the Grossmont South League this year. Paul has agreed to give us his take on tonight's games in the opening round of the Division I playoffs. Just for the sake of clarification, the USDHS' Dons basketball team, which features the Waltons, David Abramowitz and Co., plays in Division III, not Division I. Having said that, we'll be featuring Pat McKinney's analysis of the opening rounds of the other Divisions in San Diego next from his site. In the meantime, here's Paul's analysis of the first round of the CIF San Diego Section Division I playoffs:

San Diego Division 1 Monday Night Preview

The battle for the San Diego CIF championship gets underway tonight at Valhalla and West Hills. Valhalla, the 15^th seed, will be hosting #18 San Marcos while 16^th seeded West Hills hosts #17 Mount Miguel. Both games are set to tipoff at 7:00 pm.

We (Helix High School) played three of the four teams, and will face the winner of the Valhalla/San Marcos matchup on Tuesday night in our gymnasium. Obviously, the most impressive team to me would have to be Mount Miguel since they defeated us on our home floor a couple of weeks ago. But, I was also impressed with the play of West Hills, whom we defeated earlier in the year. And, while we defeated Valhalla twice, both games were struggles throughout.

San Marcos, on the other hand, is a team I know very little about, other than the fact that they play in the highly competitive Palomar League and managed to defeated the top-ranked Division 1 school in the county, Rancho Buena Vista, by something like 20 points.

In the Mount Miguel vs. West Hills matchup, I look for a highly competitive game but would have to give the edge to Mount Miguel as they are coming off huge late-season wins over Helix and Granite Hills. However, the game is being played at West Hills, a difficult place to play, so look for a toss-up game.

In the San Marcos vs. Valhalla game, I see an excellent matchup between the size and strength of Valhalla and the quickness and athleticism of San Marcos. Both teams present problems for us the following night, since Valhalla already lost to us twice (and we all know how hard it is to defeat a team three times in one season) and San Marcos can obviously beat just about anyone if they were able to defeat RBV that soundly.

This is what high school hoops is all about. The second season starts tonight, with 18 teams battling for the coveted San Diego CIF Division 1 Championship. Let’s get underway!