State, NCS competitions conclude fall sports with top local performances
Northgate High boys water polo and De La Salle cross country came away with the most recent North Coast Section championships for local schools as the fall sports calendar wrapped up.
Girls Golf – Madelyn Gamble followed her second place at NCS and third at NorCal with a fourth-place finish of two over par 73 at the State Golf Championships last month at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Peach Beach. Her Cougar teammate Madison Wu was 21st with her score of 76.
Gamble and Wu qualified as individuals after the Cougars were one spot away from qualifying for another state tournament as a team.
Water Polo – Northgate boys enjoyed a magical run to the NCS Division 2 championship and all the way to the Northern California D-3 championship match against St. Ignatius of San Francisco. SI defeated the Broncos 9-7.
Northgate was seeded third in NCS and took out No. 2 Terra Linda in the semi-finals 10-8 before besting top seed Cardinal Newman to win the title 11-10.
That championship earned them a three seed at NorCals. They beat Buhach Colony of Atwater 13-5 and took out second seeded Oakdale 10-8 in the semis.
Carondelet was the No. 1 seed in Division 2 at NCS. The Cougars outlasted Northgate 12-11 in the semi-finals but had a similar scoreline reversed in the finals with No. 2 seed Tamalpais beating Carondelet 17-16 in overtime.
Clayton Valley Charter girls defeated Berkeley 7-6 and Redwood 5-1 in D-1 as the fifth seed. The Eagles lost in the semis to eventual champions and No. 1 ranked Sir Francis Drake.
De La Salle lost to top seed Miramonte in the opening round of Division 1 boys.
Girls Volleyball – NCS finalists Carondelet lost in five sets to Clovis West in the first round of the NorCal D-1 tournament.
Cross Country – De La Salle junior Patrick Curulla highlighted the local contingent by winning NCS Division 2 and taking eighth at the CIF State cross country championships. He was the top local finisher in any division while leading the NCS champion Spartans to a ninth-place team place. Kieran Brown was 29th and Derek O’Connor 61st for the next two DLS placers.
At NCS, the Spartans ran away from the D-2 field with strong runs from Curula (1st), Brown (3rd), O’Connor (5th), Nathan Babby (16th) and Oscar Gomez (21st)
Northgate was sixth and a young Carondelet team seventh with a freshman and two sophomores their top finishers at NCS in D-3. The Broncos were paced by Lark Chang-Yeh in 22nd and then three others bunched within the top 39 spots. Chloe Chapman, Kara Chung and Megan Malloy were scorers for Northgate.
Clayton Valley Charter girls were 10th in NCS Division 1 with Angely Alas and Alex Martinez their top finishers.
Northgate was fifth and the Concord Minutemen boys were 12th in D-3 at the Section meet. Logan Harlow led the way for Northgate in eighth place with Kyle Walsh and Evan Leach next across the finish line. Logan Jacobs and Diego Huerta ran 12-13 for Concord.
Huerta took 44th and Logan 52 at State as they qualified as individuals from their NCS performances. Harlow was 81st at State.