Menlo-Atherton, despite a better seed, must travel to Salinas to play Alvarez for the CCS Division I championship.
Menlo-Atherton can claim a Central Coast Section boys basketball championship for the first time in over three decades on Saturday. But despite having a better seed than its opponent, Everett Alvarez of Salinas, M-A won’t be allowed to host the Division I title game.
“I understand the consequence,” M-A co-athletic director Steven Kryger, who wasn’t at the game but watched on the NFHS Network, said Thursday night. “Over the years I have personally warned our fans at a football game, at a girls volleyball championship game, you cannot storm the court. In Tuesday’s quarterfinals, a clock malfunction inside the Alvarez gymnasium caused a referee to disallow Palo Alto’s buzzer-beating basket that would have sent the game to overtime.Asked about the incident on Wednesday, CCS commissioner Dave Grissom told the Bay Area News Group, “I have spoken to Brian Alvarez, the athletic director at Alvarez , in regard to the clock. I’ve seen comments on social media that say this has been an ongoing issue, but according to Alvarez, that was not true.
Thursday’s semifinals didn’t provide as much drama for either team, as Alvarez traveled 85 miles to Belmont for a 68-57 victory over top-seeded Carlmont “That’s been our blueprint,” M-A coach Mike Molieri said. “One of the things we’re comfortable as a staff is teams don’t see our kind of pressure consistently, so that’s why we feel confident in the postseason. All we do is give them the game plan, give them the lesson and it’s up to them to do it. But they’re committed to it.