SAN MATEO, Calif. — When Paul Carion took over as the head girls basketball coach at San Mateo High School in 2023, the Bearcats had lost 50 consecutive league games dating back four years.
Carion’s arrival coincided with the Peninsula Athletic League adopting a tiered format for basketball to match the PAL’s other sports, so naturally, San Mateo was placed in the Lake Division — the lowest of the three tiers — for the 2023-24 season.
The Bearcats didn’t stay there long.
San Mateo improved from 4-19 to 23-4 in Carion’s first year, finishing a perfect 8-0 in Lake Division play and earning a promotion to the Ocean Division. The Bearcats then went 12-0 in that division last year and 21-5 overall, and they’ve now climbed to the top of the ladder, playing in the “A”-tier Bay Division this season.
And even with a young roster consisting of just two seniors, San Mateo is proving during the non-league portion of its season that it is ready for a big step up in competition.
With Saturday’s 62-48 home win over South San Francisco, the Bearcats are 8-2 and have already secured a Central Coast Section playoff spot. For now, San Mateo is winning without star forward Kaitlyn Schuh, last year’s PAL-Ocean Player of the Year, who is out with a fractured wrist. Carion is hopeful that Schuh will be able to return for the start of league play in early January.
San Mateo is not the first Peninsula program Carion has built into a power. In 2013, Carion took over as the head coach at South San Francisco, and the Warriors posted perfect league records for three straight years from 2017-19. Led by Brittney Cedeño, the 2018 PAL MVP, South City won the CCS Division III title in 2018 as the top seed and made three appearances in the NorCal playoffs under Carion.
“I still have a lot of ties to the program. I had great years there,” Carion said. “But now I’m at San Mateo, and I’m loving it. Now, when I see South City, I want to beat South City.”
Carion has plenty of experienced coaches working for him in San Mateo. Former Bearcats head coach Nancy Dinges is on the staff, as is former Burlingame head coach Joe Dito. Rich Forslund, the longtime boys basketball head coach at Riordan and Half Moon Bay, also came on board as an assistant this year.
San Mateo scored the first 19 points of the game Saturday against his former team, clogging the passing lanes and turning defense into offense. Bella Fong hit a trio of 3-pointers in the first quarter en route to a game-high 27 points, helping stake San Mateo to a 22-2 lead eight minutes in.
“This year, I’ve definitely started shooting more,” Fong said. “I put up a lot of shots over the summer and just gained confidence from seeing the ball go in the net.”
But the Warriors (7-4) would not go down without a fight. They scored the last 11 points of the second quarter to cut their deficit to 30-21, led by Liala Kinchen, who had nine points in the period and 21 for the game.
“(South City) turned up the intensity,” Carion said. “They got way more aggressive. The first quarter, we were on our toes and they were on their heels. Second quarter, it was the other way around. I was happy we had a 20-point lead, because if we didn’t, I don’t know where we’d be.”
San Mateo settled back down after halftime, using its size advantage to get to the rim and draw fouls. The Bearcats were 7-for-14 at the free throw line, compared with the Warriors’ 3-for-8. Violet MacAvoy is the perfect complement for Fong with Schuh out, as a post player who can handle the ball well and finish cleanly in the paint. She finished with 14 points, including six in the fourth quarter.
South City got within as few as six points in the fourth before San Mateo stretched the lead back to double digits.
“Bella Fong and Violet have really stepped up their games offensively, and that’s what we need,” Carion said. “Everybody else is playing their role. We’re playing solid defense. We definitely need to work on it a little more.”
The Bearcats have almost two full weeks off for Christmas and New Year’s, then host Overfelt on Jan. 2 before visiting rival Burlingame the following evening. San Mateo is at Menlo-Atherton, the reigning Bay Division champion, in the league opener on Jan. 7.
