Boys Basketball: Trojans Overwhelm De La Salle to Win First NCS Title

No. 1 Castro Valley 60, No. 2 De La Salle 42

The Star: Roderick Bobbitt scored 10 of his game-high 20 points in the fourth quarter as Castro Valley pulled away. 

The Turning Point: After a bucket from De La Salle's Amadi Udenyi cut the deficit to 37-32 with six and a half minutes left, the Trojans answered with 10-0 run to put the game away. 

Who's Next? Both teams will advance to the NorCal playoffs. They will learn their first-round matchups on Sunday.

The Bottom Line: It took awhile for the Trojans to adjust to De La Salle's high-intensity defense, but once they did, it was game over. Castro Valley scored 27 fourth-quarter points — unheard of against the Spartans — and left no doubt as to which was the better team.

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During run to the Hayward Area Athletic League title and 25-1 record during the regular season, it was clear the Trojans were the area's most talented team. 

However, the Trojans have also been a team which has run into bad postseason luck over the past few years. So when they entered the North Coast Section playoffs as the No. 1 seed, they weren't going to take anything for granted.

The result — capped by a 60-42 win against No. 2 at Saint Mary's College's McKeon Pavilion on Friday — was one of the most dominating runs through the NCS Division-I boys basketball playoffs in years.

"Since the second half of the (which was the regular season finale), they've been playing the best basketball they've played at Castro Valley High," Trojans coach Nick Jones said. "This was huge. Not everyone can say they won an NCS title. I'm happy. I'm happy for the kids. I'm happy for the community, the adminstraition, everyone."

McKeon Pavilion's listed capacity of 3,500 wasn't nearly enough to hold Friday's rauchous crowd. Fans lined the stairs, stood five deep on the baselines and crammed more people into the building than it had for Saint Mary's marquee men's basketball matchup with Gonzaga on Feb. 24.

"We've played in some pretty crazy games, but, yes, this was probably the most packed," Castro Valley's Roderick Bobbitt said. "It was ridiculous."

The win all but gaurentees Castro Valley will receive the top seed in the California Interscholastic Federation Northern California playoffs when the seeds are released on Sunday. De La Salle will  be placed on the opposite side of the bracket, meaning the teams could eventaully meet again in the NorCal final at Arco Arena in Sacramento on March 19.

It took awhile for the Trojans to adjust to De La Salle's textbook high-pressure defense, but once they did, there was no stopping them. The Spartans led 21-20 after a bucket from Travis Pacos with six minutes left in the third quarter, but it was the last lead the Spartans would hold.

"It all started on the defensive end for us," Castro Valley's Juan Anderson said. "We had to stop gambling. Once we did that and just rebounded we started to get into our game."

De La Salle hung tough for the rest of third quarter, but simply couldn't keep pace with high-powered Castro Valley once the game's tempo picked up. After a bucket from De La Salle's Amadi Udenyi cut the deficit to 37-32 with six and a half minutes left in the game the Trojans answered with 10-0 run.

Alex Foster, Anderson and Bobbitt all scored during the run which turned a close game into a Castro Valley victory parade. Bobbitt scored 10 of his game-high 20 in the fourth quarter.

"That's him. He's a spotlight player," Jones said of Bobbitt. 

The Spartans (24-5) got a solid game from Travis Pacos (16 points) and are still very much alive in the state title game picture. Coach Frank Allocco knows better than anyone that a team doesn't necesarrily have to win the NCS title to win a state title.

When Allocco was the coach at Northgate in 1995, the Broncos did not win the section title, but went on to win the Division III state title. Last year, the Spartans beat Newark Memorial to win the NCS D-I title, but then fell to Newark in the NorCal final.

"They are the best team in Northern California," Allocco said of Castro Valley. "I'm thought we did a good job staying with them for awhile, but we have to do a better job of not turning over the basketball."

Chris Read (nine points) and Dawson Johnson (six points) both played well for the Trojans. Johnson's highlight play of the night came when he — for the second game in a row — used the backboard to pass to Anderson who threw down a thunderous dunk. 

No. 1 Castro Valley 60, No. 2 De La Salle 42

DLS