Clayton Valley Charter boys soccer top seed in NCS
CONCORD, CA (Feb. 16, 2023) — Clayton Valley Charter boys have maintained the top spot in North Coast Section rankings for a good part of the season and the Ugly Eagles have been rewarded with the No. 1 seed in the Division I soccer playoffs beginning this week.
Defending girls Division I champion Carondelet have been given the favorite’s role to repeat as they are No. 1 seed with their perennial East Bay Athletic League rivals from Danville, San Ramon (No. 2) and Monte Vista (No. 4), lurking to challenge the Cougars, who are seeking their third Section title in the last four tournaments.
Boys 2022 Division I champions De La Salle are an unaccustomed sixth seed in Division I.
Eight local teams are in the NCS soccer playoffs, including both Northgate boys and girls squads in Division II.
Boys
Division I – CVCHS (17-0-3 overall, 9-0-3 in Diablo Athletic League) hosts Heritage-Brentwood (9-8-1). The teams met in December with CVCHS winning 1-0.
No. 6 De La Salle (12-8-1, 10-3) hosts EBAL rival No. 11 San Ramon Valley (11-9-3).
Division II – No. 3 Ygnacio Valley (8-4-4, 6-4-2) hosts American-Fremont (7-6-2).
Northgate (7-7, 3-5-3) seeded 13th travels to No. 4 Tamalpais (11-6-4) in Mill Valley.
Division IV – 10th seed Mt. Diablo (5-8-3, 2-5-3) is at College of Marin to face No. 7 San Domenico-San Anselmo (6-4-4).
Girls
Division I – Top seeded Carondelet (16-2-1, 11-1-1) has a first-round bye.
No. 7 College Park (9-3-4, 7-3-2) hosts 10th seed Castro Valley (17-7).
Division II – Northgate (5-6-5, 5-4-3) seeded seventh travels to No. 10 Ukiah (17-7).
Carondelet has not lost since Jan. 3 while maintaining a high national, state and NCS ranking all season. Coach Amy Apodaca’s team will meet the winner of Fremont-Foothill in the quarterfinals Saturday.
Clayton Valley Charter and Las Lomas both kept undefeated records for the 2022-23 season when the two Diablo Athletic League squads drew their final league game 1-1 last week in a rare end of the season matchup of unbeaten teams. Now CVCHS is top seed in Division I and Las Lomas is No. 1 in Division II.
Coach Guillermo Zara’s Ugly Eagles will be seeking the school’s first-ever boys NCS soccer championship. They fell in last winter’s semi-finals to eventual champs De La Salle 1-0. The Concord rivals can only meet in the championship game this year.
De La Salle lost four of six games in a two-week stretch through the beginning of February and need to quickly regain their early January form to progress in this year’s playoffs. The Spartans defeated their opening-round opponents, San Ramon Valley, last week 2-0 in an EBAL game.