Salesian High basketball star Jabari Bird will announce his college choice Wednesday, and it appears the five-star wing will decide to go to Cal.
The 6-foot-6 Bird, one of the most sought-after basketball recruits in the country, had narrowed down his choices to Cal, Washington, Oregon and Colorado.
Bird took an official visit to Cal this past weekend, and, according to online reports, has canceled his remaining official visits to the other three Pac-12 schools. Cal was his first official visit.
“Pretty much everybody has a general idea where I’m going,” Bird said Tuesday night. “They’d probably be right.”
Bird, the Bay Area News Group East Bay Player of the Year for 2011-12, led Salesian to the Division IV state championship last season. He was the Pride’s leading scorer (18.7 points per game) and rebounder (4.8 per game).
In the state title game against Price-Los Angeles, a 70-56 Salesian win, Bird had a game-high 24 points on 10 of 16 shooting.
Bird played at Benicia as a freshman. In only two seasons at Salesian, he’s already fifth on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,127 points.
Girls volleyball
Las Lomas d. Monte Vista: The Knights erased deficits in the second and third games to help earn a 21-25, 25-20, 25-22, 25-19 nonleague win over the host Mustangs (0-1).
The result was a reversal of last year’s match between the two teams when Monte Vista played at Las Lomas. The Mustangs lost the first game and won the last three.
“It’s a funny sport,” Las Lomas coach Jim Changaris said. “We started serving better and started blocking better, and in that last game we just overall played a lot better.”
Las Lomas (1-0) rode their two big hitters to the win as Rachel Nieto had 17 kills and Maddie Borch added 12 kills, spearheading the rallies in games two and three.
Nieto certainly had a big night hitting the ball, but it was in game two when she served the Knights back into the match. She had two aces and four points to narrow the gap as Las Lomas wound up taking the lead for good at 19-18 after it fell behind 9-3.
The Knights also trailed 9-3 in the third game but took the lead for good at 18-17.
The Knights’ Rachel Linden had 40 assists. Monte Vista’s Jenessa Helu had four kills and seven blocks.
— Matt Smith, correspondent
