Boys Basketball:
Record Prediction: 18-8, 2nd in league
After a half-decade of dominance in DAL, Campolindo’s well of high-level talent has dried out. The departure of the 2023 trio of Shane O’Riley, Logan Robeson, and Clay Naffziger, will force many players with little varsity experience to step up. With this, it is up to senior Dylan Mansour to lead this rebuilding program throughout the year. Year after year, new players have provided pivotal contributions to Coach Dyer’s system, so we expect nothing different this year. Some players that are expected to take bigger roles along with hopefully providing larger contributions are guards junior Ren Marchetti and senior Landon Fly and senior center Tim Smith. Even so, this is Clayton Valley’s league to lose, and we expect them to win the league handily with Campolindo finishing 2nd. Lastly, the Cougars have the coaching and winning culture to stay competitive even against more talented players.
Girls Basketball:
Record Prediction: 13-13
The girl’s basketball team had a rough season in 2022-2023, going 9-17 and only winning one league game. Since the pandemic, this team has struggled to regain successful play, only winning 3 league games. Luckily for the program, a new coach has been hired, Doug Cardoni, so hopefully he can turn this program around into a team that competes for the league every single year. That said, an immediate turnaround to league champs seems blindly optimistic, but improvement is almost 100% guaranteed.
Wrestling:
Record Prediction: 6-0 (League), 1st in DAL
With head coach Phil Freeman going into his 3rd year coaching wrestling at Campo, the team looks to improve on last year’s 2nd place finish in the division. The team has only lost 1 league dual meet over coach Freeman’s career and I think that they will continue the hot streak. The team is solid on the boy’s side, only losing 1 senior from last year; Chase Yang, the team’s captain for the 2022-23 season. They boast wrestlers like senior Gavin Juni, this year’s captain for the boys, who had a 9-5 win-loss record individually last year. The girls side is stacked with talent as well. Piper Lalli, who placed 7th in NCS last year, is a co-captain for the girls. Isabel Zabronsky, who qualified for state last year, will unfortunately be off the mat for the entire season with a torn ACL, but Coach Freeman is still confident in his team’s ability to dominate this season. “I think we’re the best team around here. More often than not, we’re gonna get it done.”
Girls Soccer:
Record Prediction: 12-3-1
Coming off a stellar 12-6-4 season, where they came one game away from reaching the North Coast Section Division 3 championship, the Campo girls soccer team has much to prove this year. Their team has been completely shaken up since last year. Just under half the players from last year’s team either graduated or left for other schools. Regardless, the girls always manage to do better than the boys team as of late. They will have to rely on their strong junior class, with players like Mylie Jacquet and Julia Whitney. We know this team can win games, so the question becomes: “By how much?”
Boys Soccer:
Record Prediction: 8-10-2
Since 2019, Campolindo boys soccer has yet to be truly competitive, only winning 4 games each year in the last 3 seasons compared to nearly 20 in 2018-2019. This might be the year they get over the hump, but that will only come with massive improvements in almost every area. Last year they scored 17 goals and allowed in more than double that (40 goals). Players who should have some big impact include junior Sean Mungunshagai, senior Holden Anderson, and junior Levi Olson. A win over Acalanes is all they have to do to make this season a winner. Even so, we don’t think they will compete for the league or NCS.
