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DANA POINT, CA – it didn’t take the Newport Pacifica Christian High boys’ basketball team long Friday night to confirm what its head coach had drilled into its collective consciousness over the past couple of days:

The Dana Hills High team has a lot of quality jump shooters with a lot of range.

The host Dolphins got five 3-pointers from four players in the first five minutes or so to burst out to a six-point advantage.

But the Tritons quickly stabilized their defense to pull out to a 12-point lead at intermission and coast to a 76-56 victory in a CIF Southern Section Division 2A second-round playoff game.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA – There’s a large quantity of Southern California-based seniors still looking for a college landing spot this fall.

And few of those are having the kind of final high school season performance that Denzel Hines is turning in for Ontario’s Colony High Titans.

The 6-foot-7 Hines (pictured), who will lead his teammates into their CIF Southern Section Division I playoff game at Damien Friday night at 7 o’clock, scored 43 points in the Titans’ 77-55 first-round win over visiting Los Altos Wednesday night.

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SANTA ANA – The Heritage Christian High boys’ basketball team traveled – twice – to Mater Dei High in Santa Ana for games this season.

And, on each occasion, the southward-bound traffic on Highway 5 left Coach Paul Tait  more than just a tad antsy while checking his watch frequency as the Warriors’ bus driver maneuvered thru a near-quagmire during the 60-mile trek to Orange County.

So, when the CIF Southern Section’s Division 1 bracket was unveiled early Sunday afternoon and he saw where his team was sent to play, Wednesday night’s game wasn’t going to be another of those “dang, are we going to get there in time to even warm up before the game?”

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LAGUNA NIGUEL – Seven formidable clubs – including the No. 2 team in the west – are the challengers standing in the way of Corona Centennial winning a third consecutive CIF Southern Section Open Division title.

Full disclosure: I’m on the Open Division advisory and selection committee.

Coach Josh Giles’ 25-3 team drew the No. 1 seed in the eight-team field that was unveiled by the CIF SS office early Sunday afternoon.

The Huskies are led by three seniors – guard Jared McCain and posts Aaron McBride and Devin Williams – as the core of the program that is 79-6 over the past three seasons and hasn’t lost to a California-based opponent since May 28 of 2021.

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SAN DIEGO – Six-foot-four J.J. Bartelloni is one of the best of the “unsigned/non-committed) seniors in Southern California.

As to remind folks – and college coaches – of that, he put all those shooting skills on display Saturday evening for his Torrey Pines High team during the Battle at the Bay at Mission Bay High.

Bartelloni (pictured) hist six 3s in the first half, and seven overall, in route to a 32-point performance that helped the Falcons improve to 18-8 while toppling San Diego, 62-54, in one of the seven games played during the event.

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