Support our high school sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribe now.
VALENCIA — It was a night that marked history for the West Ranch boys basketball program.
Never before have the Wildcats been to the CIF Southern Section Open Division. A roster filled with talent had finally gotten over the hump and into the prestigious division, known to host Southern California’s best teams in the postseason.
Everything was ready. A taco truck just outside the gym, a DJ to welcome a sold-out crowd and a student section oozing with excitement for top-notch competition. West Ranch was ready, too.
The Wildcats overcame first-quarter jitters and used a great third quarter to edge St. John Bosco 55-53 in the opening round of the Open Division playoffs at home Friday night.
Andrew Meadow delivered an old-fashioned 3-point play with under 10 left that secured the win. Xinyi Li responded with a 3-pointer but time expired.
“We came into this expecting games like this,” said Meadow, who’s signed to play at Boise State. “Our mindset is to just go 1-0, 1-0, 1-0 these three games. It’s nice to get the first one.”
West Ranch will host St. Bernard and St. John Bosco will play at Harvard-Westlake in the second round of games Tuesday night.
Meadow had 17 points, Jazz Gardner tallied nine points and 11 rebounds and Jaqari Miles added eight for West Ranch. St. John Bosco’s Xinyi Li had a game-high 23 points and Elzie Harrington, one of SoCal’s top sophomores was held to six points.
“I was proud of our guys,” St. John Bosco coach Matt Dunn said. “We did not play our best game and kept fighting. This was a high-level game and didn’t feel much different than other games we’ve played in this season. We just didn’t play well enough to play a really good team tonight.”
St. John Bosco, a program that’s been in the Open Division five of the past six years, showed its experience early, running out to a 10-4 run to start the game. West Ranch…
Read the full article here