San Jose City College Takes Its Turn Atop the North

[ December 13, 2004 Poll ]

The top spot in North Region has been cursed this season. Each team that has made it there during the regular season fell the following week. San Jose City College gets the dubious honor this week along with a #3 ranking for the state in this week's CCCWBCA Poll. Pasadena City College, the only undefeated team in the state at 9-0, was the unanimous choice of the panel for #1 State for the second consecutive week. Riverside Community College maintained the runner-up position. Foothill College broke into the top five to be fourth on the slate. Antelope Valley College held onto #5 in a week filled with tournament upsets.

Pasadena hosted their annual Rose City Classic and coasted to the championship, never allowing opponents within two dozen points. Jeanine Deno, a 5'7" freshman guard for the Lancers, was named MVP. College of the Canyons were downed in the title game 82-46 and fell to #10 in the poll. Improving Long Beach City College nearly upset Canyons in the semifinals before losing to Imperial Valley in the third place match. El Camino College won the consolation title.

Riverside had a nonconference game at College of the Desert. The Tigers won as expected in a surprisingly close game. Riverside scored 75 to Desert's 65.

San Joaquin Delta College hosted the Tournament of the Week which had four of the top eleven colleges entered. The path to the championship was filled with upsets. Butte College was the only undefeated team outside the City of Pasadena, but was tripped by #3 Delta and this week's #20 team, Contra Costa. Delta was upset by Foothill in the semifinals by a trey. San Jose escaped Merced and upset Foothill 78-69 in the final.
Jaguar Monique Coquilla was given the Most Valuable Player honor.

Moorpark College's tournament was seeded so #4 Mt. San Antonio College and #5 Antelope Valley College would meet in the championship game. They did meet, but in the consolation final. That was set up by two first-round upsets. Mt. SAC lost 57-52 to #13 Los Angeles Valley College, then unheraled Citrus defeated Antelope Valley 52-49. Ventura College surfed by L.A. Valley and survived Citrus to win the trophy and move up three spots to #11 in the poll. In the third-place game, Moorpark upset L.A.
Valley 65-57.

Four of the remaining five tournaments had one ranked entrant each, but not all of them won. Things went as expected at Santa Rosa Junior and Southwestern Colleges. Santa Rosa had a Pasadena-esque roll through their tournament with 22 points being the closest margin given to them by Ohlone College. Shasta lost the title match and Ohlone took third. The MVP was Danae Wellander of Santa Rosa. At Southwestern's four-team tourney, Glendale nearly stopped Chaffey in the first round, 65-59, before Chaffey marched to the championship over the host. Glendale took third.

The final at Solano Community College matched unranked Porterville, which by this time had the best record in North Region, with #19 Sierra College. Jennifer Borror led the Pirates through the Sierra defense to the tournament title 64-56 and took MVP honors. Earlier in the tournament, Mission College had the best record of the region for two hours and a 77-62 final gave them third place over Solano.

#12 Fullerton College met NJCAA scholarship program Yavapai College of Arizona in the last game at the Allan Hancock tournament, but fell 60-55. in the first round, College of the Sequoias (#16) came closer to defeating them in a defensive 44-42 loss. COS eventually won consolation while the best L.A. Pierce team in over a decade nearly took third place versus Saddleback, 63-58.

Lassen College was looking good at Merritt College's East Bay Classic until they saw the new-look triple-tower Merritt Alumni team in the championship game. Lassen managed to take them into the final seconds, but lost 73-68. Fresno City College nabbed third place over Merritt and Napa Valley College won the consolation championship against Dominican College Junior Varsity.

There were no upsets in the Games of the Week. Mission warmed up for Solano tourney with a 85-65 win over Monterey Peninsula. In the South, Southwestern got their record above .500 with an exciting win against Rio Hondo, 63-61.

The tournament of the Week this week takes place Thursday through Saturday at Antelope Valley College. The fifth-ranked Marauders host #13 L.A. Valley and Moorpark in the eight-team brackets.

The North Game of the Week is where the curse can bite San Jose as they have a quick rematch of Saturday's Delta championship game. #3 SJCC will be at #4 Foothill at 7:00 on Friday night. At the same day and time, #11 Ventura travels to #10 Canyons in their annual series for the South Game of the Week.

Greg Murphy gregm@altair.csustan.edu