State High School Basketball Tournament : Amat Gets Manual Arts, Mater Dei Hits Road

The Runner-up Bowl--a.k.a. Manual Arts versus Bishop Amat--highlights the first-round matchups for the Southern California Regional high school basketball playoffs, with some of the lower divisions more like an empty bowl for Los Angeles-area teams.

In pairings released Sunday for the Southern portion of the state playoffs, which open Tuesday and culminate March 19 at Oakland, the City and Southern Section dominate Division I with 6 of 8 entries. That includes top-seeded Crenshaw, the City 4-A champion, Simi Valley, the Southern Section 4-A winner, and Mater Dei, the Southern Section 5-A titlist and defending California champion.

Manual Arts of Los Angeles, which lost to Crenshaw in the final Friday, and Bishop Amat of La Puente, likewise to Mater Dei Saturday, meet in what looks to be the best matchup. The game will be played at either Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal State Los Angeles, East Los Angeles College or Santa Monica College, with the decision to be made today.

Crenshaw (against L.A. Jordan) and Simi Valley (Santana of Santee from the San Diego Section) both get home games. Mater Dei, meanwhile, gets a trip to Fresno to meet Central Section champion Hoover. So much for the clout of winning the Southern Section’s major division.

In the girls’ Division I, top-seeded Morningside of Inglewood, the Southern Section 4-A champion, plays host to City 3-A winner Reseda. Another local matchup has Chino at Westchester. Lynwood, which travels to meet San Diego champion Mt. Carmel, is the other area qualifier, giving the City and Southern Section a combined 11 of 18 spots in Division I.

But from there . . .

Division II boys--Kennedy of La Palma plays host to Torrey Pines of Del Mar, which lost in the semifinals of the San Diego Section playoffs but was No. 1 in the state in the division for much of the season; Tustin and Woodbridge. Bakersfield Foothill of the Central Section is the top-seeded team.

Division II girls--Palos Verdes, coming off a win in the Southern Section 3-A title game Friday night, is No. 1 and plays host to Visalia Mt. Whitney of the Central Section; 3-A runner-up Los Altos of Hacienda Heights and Woodbridge of Irvine.

Division III boys--No one.

Division III girls--Ditto.

Division IV boys--Banning, the Southern Section 2-A champion, is top-seeded and gets a home game against Holtville of the San Diego Section; 1-A champion Beaumont and 1-A runner-up Bell-Jeff of Burbank.

Division IV girls--Two entrants. Santa Clara of Oxnard, the 1-A runner-up, is at Holtville and 1-A winner Valley Christian of Cerritos plays host to San Diego runner-up Coronado.

Division V boys--Two entrants. Southern Section champion Oakwood of North Hollywood is the top-seeded team and has a bye, while runner-up Hesperia Christian plays host to Fowler of the Central Section.

Division V girls--Two entrants. Top-seeded Trona, the Small Schools champion, which has a bye; and runner-up Lone Pine, which travels to Riverdale of the Central Section.

The regional semifinals are Thursday at neutral sites and the finals are Saturday at the Sports Arena. The winner in each division there advances to meet the Northern California champion a week later in Oakland.