Will it be once every 57 years?
That’s how long it took El Cajon Valley High to win its first league basketball championship, a feat not accomplished since the school opened in the 1955-56 school year.
The Braves (19-8) have yet to enter the UT-San Diego basketball poll Top 10 but their exploits have created a stir along Main Street in the city sometimes known as the Big Box.
A 69-61 victory over Mount Miguel, in which Andre Nikkita scored 41 points (30 in the second half) gave El Cajon Valley a 7-1 league record and championship of the Grossmont Valley circuit.
The Braves open the San Diego Section II playoffs at home against Serra (16-10) Wednesday night, Feb. 21.
Nikkita, the County’s leading scorer with 764 points, is averaging 28.3 points in 27 games. He needs nine points to break the school record of 772, set by Kemmy Burgess, who averaged 29.7 in 26 games in 1997-98.
Scribe Bill Dickens has been following East County teams since the 1960s.
“They had some good teams in the Bill Walton era (1969-70 at Helix), but who could tell?” said Dickens, citing the achievements were such of the Highlanders, 61-2 in two seasons, that all else was overshadowed.
SEEDINGS SET
If playoff seedings, determined after last Friday’s final regular-season games, stay true through the first three rounds, these Nos. 1 and 2 seeds will meet in the finals of each division:
I, Mission Hills-El Camino.
II, La Costa Canyon-Hoover.
III, Cathedral Catholic-St. Augustine.
IV, Army-Navy-Mater Dei Catholic.
V, Horizon-Foothills Christian.
UT-San Diego weekly poll:
First-place votes in parenthesis.
|
Place |
Team |
Record |
Points |
Last Week |
|
1 |
Cathedral Catholic (9) |
24-3 |
125 |
1 |
|
2 |
Army-Navy (2) |
23-4 |
115 |
2 |
|
3 |
La Costa Canyon (2) |
22-4 |
105 |
3 |
|
4 |
St. Augustine |
21-4 |
93 |
4 |
|
5 |
Hoover |
25-5 |
72 |
T5 |
|
6 |
Mission Hills |
23-4 |
52 |
7 |
|
7 |
San Marcos |
24-4 |
49 |
T5 |
|
8 |
El Camino |
23-5 |
44 |
8 |
|
9 |
San Ysidro |
22-7 |
23 |
9 |
|
10 |
Morse |
22-7 |
10 |
10 |
