Benefield: High school basketball tournaments are worthy pursuits

I haven't always held the intra-league postseason basketball tournaments in very high regard.

After all, league winners have already been determined and no two-game tournament changes that. It can feel like a space-taker - a couple of games to fill in a week in which many teams are waiting to see where in the North Coast Section tournament they will land.

The word meaningless comes to mind.

But watching the North Bay League tournament finals Saturday night in which the Windsor boys gutted out a 54-52 win against rival Montgomery to take the North Bay League tournament championship and the Cardinal Newman girls capped another perfect league season with a 73-44 final win against Montgomery, as well as the Sonoma County League finals on Friday, made me want to eat my meaningless words.

The Windsor boys team, now 23-5 overall and 13-1 in league to win the NBL title for the second time in three years, came into the contest having twice beaten Montgomery in league. And everyone knows that playing a team for the third time? Pure danger.

So there was already some electricity in the air. Add to that this: The last time these two behemoths met on Feb. 1, Windsor won 47-44 in Montgomery's gym. Their earlier meeting? By some accounts it was the game of the NBL season, an overtime thriller between two undefeated teams that Windsor took 48-39.

So this game promised to be good. It delivered.

Adding fuel to this fiery matchup is this crucial piece: Unlike in the SCL games Friday, the NBL boys finals pitted two teams in the same North Coast Section division against each other.

Heading into Saturday night's game, Windsor was ranked No. 5 and Montgomery No. 6 in the MaxPreps NCS Div. 2 standings.

On Sunday morning, the NCS postseason selection committee will be ensconced in a seeding meeting for the section tournament that begins next week.

And in that meeting, Windsor, Montgomery, as well as NBL third-place finisher Cardinal Newman, which sits at No. 9 in the divisional rankings, will be in the mix for the Division 2 bracket. Saturday night's result is the latest piece of information committee members will use to decide who gets what seed.

So Saturday night felt like the winner was getting the last word or the last good jab in at a debate.

And in this case it could mean the difference between a first-round home game or having to hit the road.

So the fact that the game went down to the last possession seemed just and right.

Montgomery led 13-10 after one quarter and it was 24-23 Vikings at the half, but Windsor pulled ahead 40-38 after three quarters.

Montgomery took a 50-49 lead with 2:50 to play on junior Harvey Rouleau's 3-pointer, but Windsor immediately answered.

And after both Montgomery coach Zac Tiedeman and Windsor coach Travis Taylor let both teams play all night, both sides called time outs trying to figure out a way to get a stop.

Windsor senior standout Riley Smith iced the game at the free-throw line with 16 seconds to play to make it 54-50 and a Rouleau driving layup made it 54-52 but the Vikings could get no closer.

At the whistle, the Jags erupted. Meaningless? I think not.

Riley Smith led all scorers with 21, while his twin brother Justin Smith had 17.

Rouleau led the Vikings with 17 and senior Evan Poulsen had 12.

The NBL girls final had none of the drama of the boys game and didn't look anything like Friday night's two SCL barn burners.

Cardinal Newman ran away with it 73-44 - a score that by the Cardinals' standards is close. But there was little surprise at the outcome after the Cardinals beat Montgomery 70-24 in their last meeting Jan. 31. The Cardinals have not lost a North Bay League game since 2014.

Newman senior Tal Webb led all scorers with 22, while senior Maiya Flores and sophomore Anya Choice both had 17.

Montgomery was led by senior Shayla Newman with 10 points and sophomore Ashleigh Barr with nine.

On Sunday the seeding committee will put Cardinal Newman somewhere in their Div. 3 bracket, but even with that, there is little intrigue. Newman is ranked No. 1 in the division by MaxPreps and Saturday night's box score will likely do nothing to mess with that.

It is of note that last year, after again winning league with nary a loss and winning the NBL tournament, Cardinal Newman proceeded to win the Div. 4 NCS tournament while beating teams by an average of nearly 37 points.

Perhaps gearing up for what's next, Newman had its starters on the floor Saturday night until the final 50 seconds of the contest.

Heading into Saturday night's game, Montgomery was ranked fifth in Div. 2, behind SCL (and SCL tournament) champs, Petaluma at No. 4.

But the NBL girls final was the outlier on the excitement-o-meter, thank goodness.

Both nights had raucous crowds and the brand of hit-the-deck kind of intensity that didn't exactly scream meaningless.

Would Piner guard Scott Erickson have played like he was trying to cover half his body in floor burns if Friday night's boys' final didn't mean anything?

Would Piner's fans, who were named winners of the Battle of the Fans contest that night, have been losing their collective minds and making SRJC's Haehl Pavilion sound like a rocket was taking off inside if their team's ultimately unsuccessful fourth quarter rally didn't matter?

And would the Petaluma Trojans have pressed and fouled in the final moments of regulation to send the girls' game against Sonoma Valley into overtime if the outcome didn't mean anything, if they were saving themselves for NCS? They already won the SCL banner, right?

And it's well worth remembering that in both cases, unlike in the NBL boys final, the rivals are in different NCS divisions, meaning that for purposes of the all-important bracket-making going on Sunday, the outcome of Friday night's games might not play a crucial role.

Piner is ranked No. 2 in the Div. 3 rankings behind Salesian College Prep while Healdsburg is No. 2 in Div. 4 behind Kelseyville. On the girls' side, Petaluma is in Div. 2 and Sonoma Valley sits at No. 10 in Div. 4.

So while the committee may look at the score, check out the stats, those games were more than a little bit about pride.

And that is always meaningful.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 and at Kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and Instagram @kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud, “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”