Basketball: Rolling Hills Prep is only school with two teams playing for state championships

Rolling Hills Prep Athletic Director Brian Knigin needs to take a bow. His boys and girls basketball teams will be playing for state Division V championships on Friday in Sacramento, making the Huskies the only school that can win two titles.

Knigin, a former boys basketball coach, used his connections to hire two retired former City Section coaches, Harvey Kitani and Richard Masson.

Kitani spent 35 years at Fairfax until retiring at the end of last season. He had two sons attend Rolling Hills Prep. Masson was hired as the girls’ coach three years ago after coaching boys teams at Carson and Jordan.

“I’m a guy who believes coaches should coach and these are two of the best coaches I’ve ever met,” Knigin said. “They’re both fantastic and have done an unbelievable job.”

The two teams will go together in a bus trip on Thursday to Sacramento and play Friday morning at Golden 1 Center.

The girls team plays East Palo Alto Eastside Prep at 10 a.m. The boys team plays Watsonville St. Francis at noon.

Kitani is 2-0 in state championship games when he coached at Fairfax.

Rolling Hills Prep has no gym on campus. Players take a bus to a practice facility at a converted warehouse. It’s a sixth grade through 12th grade school with about 200 in the high school. Tuition is $28,100.

“It’s an amzing thing,” Knigin said of the basketball accomplishment.

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