Empire notes: Maria Carrillo doubles duo finishes 3rd at NCS tennis tournament

The Maria Carrillo tennis duo of sophomores Teresa Liang and Sophia Nguyen finished in third place in the North Coast Section doubles tournament Tuesday.

The Pumas pair upset the No. 4-seeded duo from Berkeley High 6-4, 6-2 and then toppled Miramonte 6-4, 6-3 on Monday. On Tuesday, they fell 7-5, 6-2 to the top-seeded pair from Piedmont High before upsetting the combo from No. 2 California High 6-3, 7-6 for third place.

“It was just a huge win over big-time tennis schools,” Pumas coach Bob Klyce said. “They did really well.”

SRJC men face big test tonight vs. SFCC

The Santa Rosa Junior College men’s basketball team will face a big preseason test today when they host the defending state champs, San Francisco City College (8-0), at 7 p.m. at Haehl Pavilion.

The Bear Cubs are 6-1 after a 93-73 road romp over Los Medanos Nov. 29. Sophomore Skylar Chavez, who prepped at Drake High in San Anselmo, led all scorers with 37 points. Ryan Perez, a sophomore who prepped at Petaluma High, scored 13, followed by Damian Wallace’s 11 points and Landon Courtman’s 10.

Wallace, a freshman, prepped at Cardinal Newman and Courtman, a freshman, played for Healdsburg.

Wrestling this weekend at Healdsburg High

Healdsburg High will host two days of wrestling next week with the Healdsburg JV Invitational on Friday, Dec. 14 and the Drew Esquivel Memorial Duals running Saturday, Dec. 15.

The JV tournament will be a double-elimination bracketed format with between 16-18 teams in the mix. Competition starts at 2 p.m. in the Healdsburg High gym.

On Saturday, 16 varsity teams will compete in a format that will put each team into five duals. Competition starts at 9 a.m. in the Healdsburg High gym.

Vikings take girls?tournament title

The Montgomery High School girls basketball team won the Dragon Classic tournament Saturday night behind a breakout third quarter and balanced scoring up and down the lineup.

Seniors McKenzie Weinmann and Trinity Hawkins led the Vikings with 15 and 13 points, respectively, in the 53-30 win over the Ukiah Wildcats in the final game. Montgomery outscored Ukiah 21-4 in the third quarter to put the game out of reach.

The Vikings are 5-0 and open the Windsor Tournament Thursday against a 3-0 Del Norte High squad.

Healdsburg’s Peterson to race at nationals

With her fifth-place finish at the West Regional Foot Locker Cross Country Championship on Saturday, Healdsburg’s Gabby Peterson will now compete against runners from the Northeast, South and Midwest regional race at the National Finals on Sunday at Morley Field in San Diego’s Balboa Park.

And that isn’t the only Healdsburg connection to that race. Carole and Mike Farrell, the grandparents of Colleen McCandless, the senior from Granada High who came in third in the Division 2 CIF state cross country final, live in Healdsburg.

Another FYI: The winner of the Footlocker Western Regional Saturday was Kristin Fahy, is the senior from La Costa Canyon who won the Division 2 state championship race.