Pinewood girls looking to take one more step in CCS hoops

As his Pinewood girls basketball team prepared to take on Valley Christian in the Central Coast Section Open Division semifinals, coach Doc Scheppler was … channeling Andy Williams, crooning “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.’’

That’s because it’s playoff time, the time coaches and players obsessed with attempting to refine their craft have been waiting for.

“We’re just excited this week is finally here,’’ Scheppler said. “This is why you do all the stuff, why you put in all the work, so you can be at your best when you play these games.’’

If Wednesday’s semifinals at Piedmont Hills unfold as expected with the two heavy favorites winning — Pinewood getting by Valley Christian (7:30 p.m.) and Mitty downing St. Ignatius in the earlier semifinal — the much-anticipated Pinewood-Mitty Open Division championship game will take place Friday at Santa Clara University.

It would be the fourth consecutive year Pinewood and Mitty have played for the CCS Open Division championship. Mitty has won the previous three matchups.

Pinewood, however, enjoyed something of a last laugh when it prevailed in triple overtime over a Mitty team that was undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation in last year’s NorCal Open Division championship game.

“We’re certainly not looking past (Valley Christian) to Friday night,’’ Scheppler said. “They’re much better now than they were when we scrimmaged them in the pre-season. They run some actions we’re comfortable defending. They trap a little bit, try to create situations where you have to attack the trap and make good decisions.’’

No. 3 seed Valley Christian (17-8) is coming off a 57-42 win over Presentation. No. 2 Pinewood (23-2) defeated St. Francis 61-39 in the quarterfinals.

“The coaching cliche is always to take one game at a time,’’ Scheppler said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t work on the skills your girls will have to have against Mitty and other elite teams, handling the ball, handling pressure, handling double teams. We’ve been preparing all year to play Mitty again.’’

Mitty star Haley Jones, who will be a teammate of Pinewood leading scorer Hannah Jump at Stanford, presents all sorts of problems for every team Mitty plays, Pinewood included.

“It’s not so much their half-court sets that creates issues as it is their offensive rebounds and their style of play that creates easy baskets,’’ Scheppler said.

The popular perception of Pinewood is, “all they do is shoot 3s.’’

Uh, not exactly. Scheppler spent the next 15 minutes talking about nothing but defense.

Pinewood got very few open looks at 3-pointers against Mitty in last year’s NorCal Open final, but won the game by hanging around in a defensive slugfest until Mitty ran out of gas in the third overtime period.

“We’re more conservative on defense than many teams we play,’’ Scheppler said. “We play man. We play good man, fundamentally-sound man, pointing toward getting better and better — usually with our backs against the wall.’’

He was still ruminating on how Eastside Prep scored 39 points in the first half on Pinewood’s senior night.

“They gave us everything they had and we had to dig down deep,’’ Scheppler said. “They hit eight 3s in the first half. It’s not like we were playing terrible, but we weren’t laser-focused like we’ll need to be to beat the top teams.’’

Pinewood outscored Eastside 40-13 in the second half and won 79-52 And the theme song for this post-season has defense in the main bar.

“It’s D we’re playing, not 3s we’re raining,’’ Scheppler rhymed.

It’s been a special four years for Pinewood as the program elevated from Division V small-school power to the highest level of high school girls basketball, the California Open Division.

Jump and Klara Astrom were freshmen starters on the 2016 team that knocked off St, Mary’s of Stockton, another undefeated team ranked No. 1 in the nation, in the NorCal Open semifinals, before losing in the NorCal final to a Miramonte team that featured Sabrina Ionescu.

Jump and Astrom were juniors last year when Pinewood took it a step further, outlasting Mitty in that epic triple-overtime NorCal final before losing to Windward in the state Open Division championship game.

And now the clock is ticking down on their final games in a Pinewood uniform. It’s not too difficult to figure how they’d like this season to play out. They’d like to help take Pinewood that one final step, one win further than it’s ever gone before.