They are the little schools that could, and did.
Pacifica Christian’s boys basketball team and the Rosary girls basketball team won CIF Southern California Regionals playoffs first-round games Wednesday.
Pacifica Christian, a Newport Beach private school with an enrollment of 93, is in its first season of varsity basketball. The Tritons advanced to the CIF-Southern Section Division 6 championship game where they lost to Carnegie of Riverside, 75-45.
Because it advanced to that CIF-SS championship game, Pacifica Christian was placed in the CIF State tournament. The Tritons, seeded No. 11 in the Southern California Division V 16-team bracket, beat No. 6-seeded Chavez of San Fernando, 75-74, on Wednesday.
Another smaller Orange County school that is doing well is Rosary, an all-girls Catholic school in Fullerton with an enrollment of 452.
Rosary won the CIF-SS Division 2AA championship, the Royals’ second sectional basketball title, having won their first in 1997. It was a bumpy ride to the final: a 45-point win over Colony of Ontario in the first round, a 19-point win over Lakewood in the second round, a one-point win over Twentynine Palms in the quarterfinals, a 20-point win over Trinity League rival JSerra in the semifinals and a one-point win over Camarillo in the championship game.
Rosary, seeded No. 1 in Division III of the regionals, beat Venice, 58-40, in a first-round game Wednesday. The Royals (26-5) play at home Saturday against Righetti of Santa Maria (25-4).
Pacifica Christian has that one standout player that can take a team to the top in a lower division. Freshman point guard Dominick Harris has been labeled by Coach Jeffrey Berokoff as the best freshman in Orange County. Harris supported that by averaging 25 points a game.
The Tritons are a very young team. They have no seniors and one junior.
The rest are sophomores and freshmen. One of the freshmen is Cal Whitney, who is scoring 18 points a game.
Berokoff, who previously was head coach at El Modena, hopes this season is not a just a highlight but also is the start of a high foundation.
“We want to build something special here,” Berokoff said. “We believe we can do it the right way and do it with kids who want to be successful on the court and off the court.”
Coach Rich Yoon is in his 25th season at Rosary. No girls basketball coach in the county has been coaching at their current school as long as Yoon has been.
Yoon has coached some excellent teams at Rosary. Some of those teams struggled in the heavy-duty Trinity League but would have been good enough to win the championships of most other O.C. leagues. This season’s Royals are sort of like that – they finished third in the five-team Trinity League with a 4-4 league record and then, strengthened by Trinity League competition, won a CIF-SS title.
Yoon can depend upon many players to come through in crunch time.
Junior center Rebekah Obinma scored 17 points with 14 redounds in the CIF-SS final. Freshman point guard Kate Goostrey – who Yoon called “always energetic” — added 11 points in that win. Camille Lira provides the stabilizing senior leadership needed by every team.
“We have a never-give-up mentality,” Yoon said. “This really is a team of resilience. We’re going to keep coming at you until the very end.”
The very end of the basketball season has not yet arrived for Pacifica Christian and Rosary, small schools who keep playing large.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
•Villa Park boys basketball coach Kevin Reynolds has taken six Spartans teams to CIF-SS championship games. They are 0-6 in those games. So, as Villa Park warmed up Wednesday to play Gardena for its first game after the latest CIF-SS loss, Reynolds said, “If anybody knows how to get a team ready for a bounce-back game, it’s me.”
•Reynolds counted 60 former Villa Park players at the Spartans’ CIF-SS 2AA championship game Saturday at Honda Center.
•The California boys basketball top 20, updated through this weekend, had Mater Dei at No. 2 and Santa Margarita at No. 11. Bishop Montgomery, which beat Mater Dei in the CIF-SS Open Division final, is No. 1. Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth is No. 3, Chino Hills is No. 4.
•The top five scorers in county boys basketball through the end of the CIF-SS playoffs: 1. Kezie Okpala, Esperanza, 29.7 points per game; 2. Trey Smith, Saddleback Valley Christian, 27.3; 3. Harris, 25.4; 4. Alex Bray, University, 25.3; 5. Romulo Howard, Savanna, 25.0.
•Newport Elks Tournament baseball finals Friday (all games at 3 p.m. unless noted): Beckman at Mission Viejo in the Lerner Division, the tournament’s top division; Roosevelt of Eastvale at Corona del Mar in the Foothill Division; Katella vs. Hemet at Boysen Park in the Costa Mesa Division; Rancho Christian of Temecula at Crean Lutheran in the Orange County Orange Division; and Nogales at Cerritos in the Orange County White Division.
•Loara Tournament baseball semifinals were Thursday. The tournament championship game is at La Palma Park on Saturday at 7 p.m.
•No CIF-SS member schools appealed their upcoming area placement. Area placement is the first part of the process of creating league configurations that begin with the 2018-19 school year. Crean Lutheran remains in the Orange County Area for the upcoming league cycle, which means Crean either will be placed in a league with O.C. public schools or, more likely, will be placed in the Trinity League.
