March 2011 Archives

St. Bernard made a valiant effort, but came up just short, 47-44, in the CIF State Division V final at Power-Balance Pavilion in Sacramento.

Down three points with 1.7 seconds left, St. Bernard's Brandon Randolph took an inbounds pass from Daniel Cordoba and launched a 55-footer that hit the rim and just missed.

Randolph finished with 14 points and five rebounds. Thurman Thomas had 10 points and 10 rebounds, and Emani Gant had 10 points and eight rebounds.

St. Joseph's Jacari Whitfield tied a Division V record by hitting five 3-pointers, finishing with 15 points, including two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter.

As was reported earlier in the week (see the Wednesday edition of the Breeze ... http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_17517245), Serra and Diamond Ranch were involved in a controversial girls basketball semifinal last Saturday in which Diamond Ranch contends a Serra player should have fouled out in the closing seconds of a game that Serra eventually won in overtime.

Here is the video that Diamond Ranch vehemently believe proves that the Serra player in question (who went on to play a big role in an overtime victory) had five fouls and should have been done for the night with about a minute left in regulation (the home scorebook had her for three, so she was allowed to re-enter the game). Many of you might have seen it already, but in case you have not, you can check it out here.

I'm not sure it proves anything conclusively. The video doesn't show the referee signaling player's uniform numbers to the scorer's table (where a mistake could have been made by the official or either of the team scorekeepers). There's at least one foul in this video sequence where any of three different Serra players could have been whistled, so without clearly seeing what the official indicated to the table, how do we know for sure?

Nonetheless, in Diamond Ranch circles, this has become the Zapruder film.  As "video proof" goes, it's light years from being as conclusive as the infamous San Pedro down marker move against Narbonne years ago.

In any scenario, CIF ruled on this earlier in the week, which was explained in the earlier story.  Both athletic directors have given the impression they're done with it for now (Serra has a title game to play tonight), so perhaps IT'S TIME TO LET IT GO!

Serra will play St. Joseph of Santa Maria tonight at 5:15 at Anaheim Convention Center in the CIF Southern Section Division III-AA final.

Will Diamond Ranch students, athletes or parents buy tickets and go boo Serra tonight?  Possibly.  Maybe we will get to see a Serra-Diamond Ranch rematch in the state regionals. Wouldn't that be explosive!