Here is the Google document for this weekend’s California State High School Championships. In recent years, this tournament hasn’t been as strong as it once was because a number of the top boys’ and girls’ teams play in a different tournament. Nevertheless, the 2024 California State High School tournament is worth following and should shed some light on the 2024-25 high school season.
it looks like Laguna, San Marcos, etc have moved to this tournament now (vs. newport’s)…
Central Section with 5 Boys Team and on the Girls Side the Central Section is represented with 7 Teams.
I am going to focus on the girls’ side as I am more familiar with the teams from NoCal and passing interest to SoCal (as I am in the Central Section).
On the girls’ side, Buchanan HS drew the short straw with the opening act vs. the 2023/24 Southern Section Open Division Champion 31-0 OLu but has a chance to pull third in the bracket. The Clovis North HS goalie is not attending, so they will have a tough row to hoe against J.Serra and Miramonte. Clovis West HS have a shot at pulling 2nd in their bracket if they can get past Leland.
Clovis East with Reece Helsel will give teams a fit and will have a tough time holding her in check, hopefully they get a strong support from her teammates. Clovis High vs. Arroyo Grande is a rematch of Central Section Championship from 2023 (nod to AGHS as Claire Minton has graduated but would not be surprised if her dad added her to roster).
On Girls side I predict (prediction only) the order of finish for Central Section (not tournament wise)
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AGHS
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Buchanan
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Clovis North
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Clovis East
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Clovis West/Clovis High
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Clovis High/Clovis West
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Righetti
Of course this is a prediction only, I could be off all around. It is a shame it has less teams, but the teams who are attending are not scrubs. With only three teams with losing records from the HS Season last year (according to Maxpreps.com being Villa Park, Los Alamitos and Menlo) and a chance to see what the upcoming HS Season will be, I always look forward to this tournament. Granted, the ‘Big 8’ won’t be here, but that is their loss.
With all the games this weekend with clubs and school affiliation, that’s gotta affect rosters. How are the kids picking between these?
Definitely an interesting weekend of games on the girls side — even with missing youth NT members it still ended up with 2 quality tournaments. Newport beat Oaks in the final of that tournament while kinda dominating most teams along the way.
HS Champs tourney Arroyo Grande ended up with a shootout win over San Marcos in the final. Orange Lutheran was missing a number of players playing elsewhere on Saturday and took a loss to San Marcos as a result.
HS Champs still ends up with a lot of quality officials and I agree while the top 8 teams doing their own thing is fine but they do miss out on a neat off season HS event.
Hi,
Honestly, I was happy with the quality of play of all games I was able to watch. The officials not so much, but with so many tournaments in SoCal last weekend, I was not surprised with the missed and inaccurate calls made.
However, the tournament overall was outstanding and hope we can have more teams participate next year.
J