The road to the state high school tournament officially begins this week with the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section and North Coast Section playoffs.

Swish Girls upset the previously undefeated McDonald’s team 25–22 to win the Middle School Girls Optimist League basketball championship on Sunday. 

Casey Tompkins of Justin-Siena High School finished first at the Marin County Athletic League finals for the third year in a row at Terra Linda-San Rafael Saturday. The top three wrestlers in each weight bracket move on to the CIF North Coast Section meet, to be held Feb. 27 and 28 at Newark High School.

Today

A bone marrow donor drive for Alexis Nielson Stone is Saturday, Feb. 21, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at 2840 Soscol Ave.

When I started this column two Friday afternoons ago, it began:

The long-awaited storms that arrived recently in the Napa Valley have been a godsend to our watersheds.

NOTES AND QUOTES for a Monday in the Napa Valley:

Amy Knopka caught this 18-inch trout on a New Year’s Day trip to the north side of Lake Hennessey. She fooled the trout using worms and a “Princess Pole.”