Frank Burlison

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – It is CIF sectional championship week in Southern California.

Oodles and oodles (that would be 12 in the Southern Section, six in the L.A. City Section and six in the San Diego Section) of pieces of title hardware will be on the line at multiple sites in L.A., Orange and San Diego counties.

The most high-profile of those championship tilts, though, will be played in the three sections’ respective Open divisions.

And the most noteworthy of those will be held at the Honda Center in Anaheim Saturday night at 6:30, when the Southern Section showdown will pit unbeaten and top-ranked (everywhere) Chino Hills against No.

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CHINO HILLS, CA – Nothing, it seems, can impede the frantic pace of the Chino Hills High basketball team en route to its collective goal of state and national championships.

The Huskies took a 27-0 record and No. 1 ratings in both California and national polls into the CIF Southern Section’s third edition of its mega-tuff Open Division.

Lonzo Ball and a cast that includes younger brothers LiAngelo and LaMelo then sprinted roughshod over Santa Margarita and Inglewood in the first two rounds by respective scores of 100-66 and 112-78.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – Friday night’s CIF Southern Section Open Division semifinal matchups are set and made up of the top four seeds that were unveiled as part of the 16-team field bracket on Feb. 12.

Top seed Chino Hills (29-0) and No. 4 Mater Dei (27-3) moved into their Friday night showdown (7 o’clock at Ayala High in Chino Hills) with relative little fuss or muss.

The Huskies met an opponent that tried to “fight fire with fire” by playing a fast-paced tempo with them Tuesday night and the result was fairly predictable: Chino Hills 112, host Inglewood 78.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – The “South Bay” portion of Los Angeles County will play host to three of Tuesday night’s CIF Southern Section Open championship quarterfinals.

Top-ranked Chino Hills takes on host Inglewood (the division’s No. 9 seed and No. 16 in the updated BurlisonOnBasketball Southern California Top 25); No. 2 Bishop Montgomery plays No. 7 Damien (at El Camino College in Torrance) while No. 3 Sierra Canyon is at No. 6 Redondo Union.

The fourth Open matchup will pit No. 5 seed Centennial (No. 9 in the BurlisonOnBasketball Top 25) against No.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – If you were looking for anything approaching “surprises” in Southern California high school basketball Friday night, you’d better not have come nosing around the CIF Southern Section’s Open Division.

The debut of arguably the strongest “sectional” playoff anywhere in high school hoops pretty much was status quo along seed lines.

The only thing that quality as a “seed upset” really wasn’t much of one at all, with No. 9 seed Inglewood, down by many as 17 points in the first, rallying to knock off host and No.

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