Championship Run Over for HHS Girls Basketball — But Not Rio Lindo

On Saturday night, the very impressive girls basketball team from Justin-Siena High School in Napa laid to rest our lingering fantasies about how far our (also very impressive) team from Healdsburg High could go in regional, and maybe even state, championships for their division this year. The girls from Justin-Siena, a Catholic school in Napa, beat our team 53-32 in their second game of the championship tournament between all the best Division 4 teams in the North Coast region. However! The (also very impressive) girls basketball team from Healdsburg’s other high school, the Rio Lindo Adventist private school out by the river, are still going strong in the regional championship tournament for Division 6. They won their game against Round Valley High from Covelo on Saturday, and next they’ll play a home game against Point Arena High on Wednesday. If they win that game, they’ll earn a spot in the tournament’s final game this coming weekend, against either San Francisco Waldorf or Mendocino High — and if they win that game, they would go to state later this month. “It’s playoff time, and anything can happen,” Rio Lindo’s athletic director, Kevin Hardesty, told the Tribune after they won the league title earlier this month. “This team has done a lot this season, but everything they have done, they have worked for.” (Source: Healdsburg Tribune & MaxPreps & California Interscholastic Federation & Napa Valley Register; paywall)