By Brandon HENSLEY

As everyone rings in the new year, Crescenta Valley High School will refamiliarize itself with teams from the Pacific League as both the boys’ and girls’ basketball squads will host the Muir Mustangs on Friday.

The beginning of the new year and the return from winter break used to mean that the non-league portion of the schedule was over and that league action would commence. Not so anymore. Several years ago, teams began playing their league rivals in early December. That means holiday tournaments and even some non-league games in January are now sandwiched in between the usual battles for Pacific League supremacy.

For the Falcon boys, the kings of league are almost always Pasadena and, unfortunately for the Falcons, they’ve already lost to them once, in December. CV will get another shot on Jan. 21 but by then it might be too late to catch the Bulldogs. That won’t stop the Falcons from trying to put together a team worthy of competing in the playoffs. Afterall, the Falcons advanced to the CIF semifinals last year, and then went on to the regional state championship game. If you put both playoff runs together, it was the most successful season in program history.

This year, CV is once again led by Tyler Carlson, a guard who became the first seventh grader to ever start for Rosemont Middle School coach Brent Ballard. Several years later, and Carlson will try to make his senior year the best one yet. Earlier this week, Carlson led his Falcons to a tournament win in the Gold Bracket in the SoCal Christmas Classic. Carlson scored 22 points in the final win over Army-Navy, and won the tournament MVP. Big man Chuck Meyer, forward Sean Kosco and guard/forward Danny Khani will provide support. CV is currently 2-1 in league, 13-2 overall. The game against Muir tips off at 7 p.m.

The CV girls are 11-5 and 1-2 in league as they take on Muir at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. Their league schedule matches up with the boys, although the times and some of the places will be different. The girls have eight seniors on their 14-person roster

Below is the schedule for the boys’ team.

  Brandon Hensley