Ocean League boys and girls basketball tournament begins Thursday

The Ocean League, due to its large number of teams (eight), decided to play a single round of league games this season and finish the regular season with tournament to determine the final seeds for the CIF Southern Section boys and girls basketball playoffs. The tournament begins with first-round games Thursday for boys and girls. On the boys side, there are eight teams competing.

Inglewood is the top seed and receives a bye in the opening round. The Sentinels will advance to the semifinals Monday, Feb. 3, against the winner between No.



4 Santa Monica and No. 5 Beverly Hills. Santa Monica and Beverly will play Thursday at 4:30 p.

m. The other two quarterfinals will feature No. 6 Lawndale at No.

3 Leuzinger (6 p.m.) and No.

7 Hawthorne at No. 2 Culver City (6:30 p.m.

) The first-round winners advance to the semifinals, with the losers going to the consolation side to play for fifth place. The tournament finals are Wednesday, Feb. 5.

Girls tournament Lawndale is the top seed in the Ocean League girls tournament. The Cardinals, who went undefeated in league play, will host No. 8 Hawthorne (4 p.

m.) on Thursday. Fourth-seeded Santa Monica hosts Centennial (3 p.

m.), third-seeded Leuzinger hosts No. 6 Beverly Hills (4 p.

m.) and No. 7 Inglewood visits No.

2 Culver City (5 p.m.).

The top three finishers will be guaranteed a spot in the CIF Southern Section playoffs. Pairings for the CIF-SS basketball playoffs will be released Saturday, Feb. 8 South girls soccer wins Pioneer League The South Torrance girls soccer team (13-2-1, 7-0) clinched the league title with Tuesday with a 4-1 win over North.

Maci Laster, Isabella Kaemmerer, Bella Sain and Naomi Adams scored for South. The Spartans are 11th in this week’s CIF-SS soccer rankings. Redondo and Palos Verdes girls soccer teams meet Friday Redondo is the top-ranked team in the CIF-SS girls soccer rankings this week and Palos Verdes is third.

The teams meet in their second Bay League match of the season Friday at Redondo. The teams met Jan. 14 with Redondo winning 4-3 despite a hat trick by Palos Verdes’ Kate Ryan.

The CIF-SS boys and girls soccer playoff pairings will be released Feb. 8..