Half Moon Bay boys reach league final
Half Moon Bay, winners of 76 games over the past three seasons, finally got the Peninsula Athletic League playoff monkey off its back Friday night at Mills-Millbrae.
After falling in the PAL semifinals for three straight years, the Cougars used a third-quarter surge to beat Burlingame 66-55 and advance to their first PAL championship game.
Ryan Yerby hit six three-pointers and scored a career-high 22 points for Half Moon Bay, which outscored Burlingame 18-7 in the third quarter.
Tommy Nuño’s last-second three-pointer gave the Cougars a 30-21 halftime lead.
Burlingame (18-8) got 25 points from senior guard Vinny Ferrari and 16 from sophomore Cal Spurlock, including four three-pointers.
After trailing by 20 after three quarters, Burlingame cut its deficit to 10 in the final period but couldn’t get closer.
After Aragon (12-14) opened the third quarter on a 9-0 run to cut regular-season champion Menlo-Atherton’s lead to 29-25, Norton responded with a three-point play that sparked a 10-2 run and put the Bears (24-2) into their first PAL title game since 2008.
Niamey Harris had 17 points, Jeff Branner 15 and Jamion Wright 14, leading six Bears players in double figures as host Mission (23-5, 14-1 AAA) won its 15th straight.
Riley Grigsby had 23 points and 11 rebounds and Matt Hicks had 11 points, including a putback with five seconds left to force overtime, as No. 14 Mitty (13-11, 8-6) won 60-56 at Sacred Heart Cathedral (9-15, 4-10), which got 24 points from Alfred Hollins and 19 from Nate Robinson. …