Sports

San Marin Coach Blasts NCS Over Tourney Seeding

Mustangs' Craig Pitti believes his 25-4 boys deserved better than a No. 5 seed; they open at home Tuesday vs. Terra Linda, while the 11th-seeded girls travel to Analy.

Less than 18 hours after his team had captured the Marin County Athletic League Tournament, boys basketball coach was not a happy man.

"It's not right," he insisted shortly after learning his 25-4 Mustangs had been seeded just fifth in the North Coast Section Championships, which begin Tuesday night. "We felt a lot of people didn't give us a lot of respect all season. It really got old."

Old perhaps, but still very much alive. The Mustangs were matched up in Round 1 with Terra Linda, 16-12, which handed San Marin its only MCAL loss of the season.

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But that's not what bothered Pitti on Sunday.

"We're a 5 (seed) and Analy is a 3," he noted of the 19-8 club from Sebastopol. "They aren't a league champion; we are. They don't have to play Tuesday night; we do.

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"It says a lot about our league. NCS didn't feel very good about the MCAL this year. That's based on the fact they made our champion a 5-seed."

Don't think Pitti won't mentioned the perceived slight to his team a time or two before Tuesday's 7 p.m. home game.

"All of our players have more motivation now to REALLY make history," he claimed.

Interestingly, the matchup with Terra Linda finally gives MCAL fans something they'd been looking forward to all season -- a head-to-head between the league's two best big men, San Marin's and Terra Linda's 6-foot-9 Mike Best.

Wesonga was sick when the Mustangs lost 68-47 at Terra Linda on Jan. 28. Wesonga has played every game since then, and San Marin's won all eight of them.

"Obviously it's the one MCAL team we didn't beat. It gives us an opportunity to close that gap," said Pitti, who noted Terra Linda also beat San Marin three times last season. "We have all the movitation we need."

So much so that Pitti didn't want to focus on the Wesonga-Best matchup.

"While everybody is going to make a big deal about the two big guys," he assured, "we could care less."

San Marin's girls also got into an NCS. And how's this for a coincidence? The Mustangs, 14-13 and seeded 11th, open Tuesday at the aforementioned Analy at 7 p.m.

The San Marin girls have their own score to settle with sixth-seeded Analy, 21-6. The Mustangs ventured north to Sebastopol and were defeated 49-35 on Dec. 21.

Tuesday's first-round winners play quarterfinal games Friday.


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