CCS girls basketball playoffs 2026: What to know after Wednesday’s seeding meeting
WHERE WILL PRIORY’S MAGICAL RUN END?
Priory has ridden an incredible stretch of results to the No. 2 seed in the Central Coast Section Open Division bracket, capping off a season where the Panthers won the West Bay Athletic League’s Foothill Division for the first time.
Priory swept Pinewood in the season series that pitted the WBAL’s top two teams, winning the two matchups by a combined three points.
So it’s expected that Pinewood will challenge Priory again. Pinewood pulled down the six seed in the Open bracket and will face Priory in round-robin play on the Pool B side of the Open bracket.
Priory gets to host, and the second seed won 42-40 when the teams faced off in Portola Valley on Feb. 6. But Priory’s impressive resume goes beyond a pair of wins over its WBAL rival.
The Panthers finished 19-5 overall and a perfect 10-0 in WBAL play, also collecting impressive nonleague wins over Clovis, Windward, Bishop O’Dowd, Piedmont and Oakland Tech.
It would be a bit of a surprise to see Priory in the six-team Open Division bracket when the CIF NorCal matchups are released, but it’s not out of the question. Pinewood, the runner-up last season in CCS Open, slotted in as the No. 6 seed in NorCal.
First things first, though – Priory will see if it can advance out of Pool B, which also includes No. 7 Alisal and No. 3 Archbishop Riordan in addition to Pinewood. Priory will host all three teams.
Simply making it to the CCS Open title game would be a massive leap for Priory. It would be the first appearance in school history for a program that has won a number of Division V championships.
But with a NorCal spot assured thanks to making the Open, Priory can afford to get a little greedy. The question is, in its heart of hearts, would Priory rather be a high seed in NorCal Division I or sneak into the bottom of the Open bracket?
ARCHBISHOP MITTY: ANY CHALLENGERS?
Top seed Archbishop Mitty has lorded over the CCS’s Open Division to an overwhelming degree.
The Monarchs have won all but three, four consecutive, nine of the last 10 and 10 of 13 possible Open Division titles since the bracket was introduced in 2013.
Sometimes it’s close. Pinewood gave the Monarchs a decent run for their money last season, losing 59-51.
But just as often, Mitty barely breaks a sweat. The Monarchs won the Open title 88-44 in 2024 and 74-51 in 2023.
One key difference: Five-star forward McKenna Woliczko missed last season’s matchup with a torn ACL. She’s back this year, and with her in the lineup, the Monarchs rarely win by a slim margin.
It’s usually more like what happened in prior years.
BUZZER BEATERS
– No. 8 Half Moon Bay is the only public school team to make the Open bracket. The Cougars swept Menlo-Atherton in the regular season to win the Peninsula Bay Athletic League’s Bay Division, an impressive resume-builder that helped them vault into Open consideration. No public school teams made the Open bracket last season.
– A year after romping through the Division I bracket as the top seed, Los Gatos pulled down the No. 2 seed in D-I. Like HMB, Los Gatos benefitted from sweeping its chief rival, No. 4 Los Altos, during the regular season.
– Menlo-Atherton, which lost 42-30 to Los Gatos in the D-I championship game last season, is the top seed. Another Santa Clara Valley Athletic League team, No. 3 Homestead, rounds out the top four after winning the El Camino Division championship.
– No. 10 Jefferson will play its first-round “home” game away from home in the Division IV bracket. The Daly City school will host Design Tech on Friday night at Oceana High’s gym in Pacifica.
Jefferson’s gym is undergoing construction after the original gym was torn down following the 2024-25 school year. The new gym is expected to open in summer 2027.
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