The Salinas Cowboys, coming off a win over defending CCS champion Santa Teresa, will face off against the top-seeded Bellarmine Bells Wednesday night (5:30 pm) in the CCS Division I semifinals at Independence High School.
Three years ago, Bellarmine and Salinas faced off in the CCS Division I finals, with the Bells dominating the whole game. However, Salinas has an extremely quick team this year and runs a defense that could cause the Bells trouble.
“We've worked on defending their quick-paced offense and breaking their press,” said Bellarmine center Jack Fordyce. “[Coach Patrick Schneider] told us that this is the game that can give us the ticket to the state tournament, so we need to play as hard as possible.”
Fifth-seeded Salinas (21-5), toppled fourth-seeded Santa Teresa in the quarter finals, 73-62, with all five of its starters scoring in double digits. Jordan Villaneda led the Cowboys with 16 points while teammate Chris Hunsdorfer added 15. Santa Teresa’s star player Trevor Priest had a great game himself in a losing cause, putting up 29 points and 14 rebounds.
The top-seeded Bells dominated Santa Clara in the quarterfinals, showing no mercy in the second half. Leading just 32-24 at halftime, Bellarmine marched on to win 72-39 as senior guard Nick McCue tallied 21 points, including two end-of-quarter buzzer beaters. However, Bellarmine’s big man Griffin Goudreau tweaked his ankle and had to sit out most of the second half.
“The whole team feels really excited about the game because we know if we win this game, we get a shot at a CCS championship,” said McCue. “We also feel really confident and ready to execute the game plan our coaches have put in front of us. Salinas runs a specific zone defense that we haven’t seen before, so we've been preparing for that. Also they are very aggressive rebounders which we might have trouble with.”
Bellarmine, overall, should give Salinas a run for their money but if the Cowboys are able to execute their full court press and apply strong defense, they will be a tough team to beat.
The winner of this game will have a shot to play for the championships at Santa Clara University on Saturday against the winner of the Piedmont Hills/San Benito game, which will take place right after the Bellarmine/Salinas game at Independence.
