It’s the girls basketball game everybody wanted.
Mater Dei plays Brea Olinda on Tuesday in the second round of the CIF-Southern Section Open Division playoffs. The game is at Brea.
Mater Dei is No. 1 and Brea is No. 2 in this week’s county rankings. In the CalHiSports.com state top 20, Mater Dei is No. 1 and Brea is No. 17.
Katie Lou Samuelson, perhaps the best county girls basketball player ever, leads the Monarchs. Samuelson, who signed with UConn, scored 28 points in their win over J.W. North of Riverside in the Open Division first round Wednesday. In Brea’s 66-58 win over Centennial of Corona on Wednesday, Tyiona Watkins scored 22 points and Reilli Richardson scored 18.
As good as Brea is, to be selected to the Open Division and to win a game in that tough bracket, Ladycats coach Jeff Sink figures his team still is not as good as it could be in the next season or two.
“We’re young,” Sink said, “and we’re fortunate to play in this game.”
Sink called it “a friendly rivalry” that exists between Brea and Mater Dei, with he and Mater Dei coach Kevin Kiernan having a strong friendship.
“Our teams bump into each other once in a while,” Sink said. “But not too often, really. We’ve often been in different brackets or different divisions.”
Their most-recent playoffs encounter was in the CIF-SS Division 1AA championship game, in 2012. Mater Dei beat Brea Olinda, 54-47. Brea had beaten top-seeded Long Beach Poly in the semifinals.
Mater Dei beat Brea in a CIF-SS championship game in 2011, too. Brea beat Mater Dei in a 2004 CIF-SS final.
Brea is the home team Tuesday because it had a first-round away game while Mater Dei had a first-round home game. When two teams meet after the first round of the playoffs, the team with the fewest number of playoff home games at that point of the playoffs is the home team. If the two teams have had the same number of playoff home games a coin flip determines the home team.
When the girls Open Division bracket was released Sunday, the first thing to look for was to see if a Brea-Mater Dei matchup would come. Well, here it is.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• It’s baseball and softball weather out there. The baseball season starts, as usual, with two outstanding tournaments, the Loara and Newport Elks tournaments. Both tournaments begin March 5.
• Three county teams are in the National High School Invitational, run by USA Baseball, in North Carolina in late March. They are Huntington Beach, JSerra and San Clemente. Those three teams just might be in the top 5 when the Register and ocvarsity.com baseball preview is published in a couple of weeks.
• In CalHiSports.com’s boys basketball state top 20, Mater Dei is No. 2 (behind Bishop O’Dowd of Oakland) and Orange Lutheran is No. 15.
• Among the early-season softball tournaments is the Cypress Tournament, which starts Feb. 28. Host-school Cypress advanced to last year’s CIF Division 1 semifinals. Esperanza, also in the Cypress tourney, was Century League champion last season.
• CIF-SS assistant commissioner Rainer Wulf said the pool of candidates for the girls Open Division was deeper than last year. It was easier for the selection committee to find 16 worthy teams.
• The CIF State basketball tournament also has an Open Division. CIF State executive director Roger Blake calls it “The Shoe Division” because of the shoe contracts top basketball programs have.
• When it is written that a boys basketball team won a game with balanced scoring, usually the individual point totals are in the teens. Buena Park had balanced scoring Wednesday when it beat North Torrance, 89-82, in a 3AA first-round game, but the scoring was not in the teens. Cedric Dashiell II and Rocky Watkins each scored 26 points, and Deonte Beckham added 23.
• Buena Park won the coin flip that decided which team is the home team today in the Coyotes’ 3AA second-round game. They play Yorba Linda in one of several second-round games that involves two county teams. Some other country-vs-county games today: Northwood at Sonora, 3AA; Corona del Mar at Ocean View, 3A; and Tarbut V’Torah at Capistrano Valley Christian, 5A.
• Boys basketball first-round playoff games were Wednesday in Divisions 3AA, 3A, 4AA, 4A, 5AA, 5A and 6, and were played Thursday in the Open Division. First-round games in 1AA, 1A, 2AA and 2A are today.
• The Orange County Athletic Directors Association has its “Athletes of Character” dinner Monday at Anaheim Convention Center. The OCADA will honor 82 student-athletes who excelled as honorable leaders.
• The National Football Foundation’s Orange County Chapter has its Scholar Athlete dinner on March 9 at Anaheim Convention Center. The honorees are football players who were named first-team all-league or all-conference while maintaining at grade-point average of 3.5 or better. Former USC (and Mission Viejo and Santa Margarita) quarterback Mark Sanchez is the guest speaker.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
