While the Mitty basketball team didn't bring home a league, section or state championship banner this season, there's little doubt its star, Ben Kone, was the premier player in the CCS.

The 6-foot-9, 245-pound junior averaged 20.2 points, 11.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.2 blocks per game, while shooting 58 percent from the field. And he did help Mitty nab one championship banner, the NorCal Division II title.

For his efforts, Kone (pronounced Kon-nay) is the Prep2Prep CCS Player of the Year.

"We haven't seen anyone quite like Kone," Las Lomas coach Sol Henik told Prep2Prep after Kone scored 24 points against his team. "He's a special player; he's so strong and he's such a force going to the basket and he's relentless. He's a competitor. I'd love to have him on my team."

So would Salesian-Richmond where Kone transferred from before his sophomore year. He's been a revelation at Mitty since then, helping the Monarchs to a WCAL and CCS Open title last season with his strong inside moves and ability to finish.

"What makes Ben special as a person is his dynamic personality," Mitty coach Tim Kennedy said during the playoffs. "It has come out in these last few games where he has been laser focused and our team has fed off his energy."

In Kone's final three games of the 2014-2015 season which ended with an upset, double-overtime loss to La Mirada in the Division II state title game, Kone averaged 25 points and 18.7 rebounds.

The San Francisco resident has a strong foundation, living with his mom Kristina close to AT&T Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants.

"My mom is all on board," Kone said. "She drives me to practices in the East Bay. If I get 20 rebounds, she wants 40. She just wants the best out of her kid."

Asked what people don't know about her son, Kristina said: "How loyal he is to his teammates and me and anybody close to him like the guys on his team. He's also hilarious and kind of a clown. He cracks jokes all of the time and will do little play on words like if we have to do housework to relieve the stress. He's funny and makes things easier on me. He's a good son."

Kone started playing basketball at the urging of former Bowditch Middle School of Foster City teammate Lee Jones, who is now a point guard at league rival Serra. Before long he was playing serious AAU ball.

"Around the end of the sixth grade beginning seventh grade when I started playing for the (Oakland) Soldiers is really when I made that turn," Kone said. "I told my mom that I want to play in the NBA. My mom said that I needed to go play with some kids that are hungry."

Kristina sent out some emails to various teams and got one back from the Soldiers where he played on the seventh grade team along with stars like Jordan Mathews, Brandon McGhee and Austin Marshall.

"They're a bunch of great guys and I learned a lot," Kone said.

Kone kept at it over time, moving up the AAU ball ladder.

"The biggest breakout for me was eighth grade year moving into ninth grade year when I played on the 15 Soldiers team when I was 14," Kone said. "That's when I met my shooting coach Glenn Graham. Coach Graham always believed in me. He said you're going to have to really work at it."

Kone has, and the hard work has paid off the past two years, helping Mitty to bring home one league title, one section title and one NorCal title. Now all that's missing is that elusive state championship. Stay tuned.

Sacred Heart Prep's season began in inauspicious fashion with the Gators losing to Menlo-Atherton 51-49.

But the Gators won seven consecutive games after that, absorbed a 12-point loss to Serra and then reeled off 16 wins in a row en route to a West Bay title and an eventual 24-5 record.

For the Gators' season-long excellence, Tony Martinelli is the Prep2Prep CCS Coach of the Year.

"It is very humbling, especially considering the great coaches in the section; Rick Hanson, Rich Forslund, Tim Kennedy and Chuck Rapp to name a few. I still remember watching Serra play Newark Memorial in a NorCal game. I had just started to get serious about coaching and Chuck Rapp had so much control of the game. Every time Newark made a run, he seemed to make the perfect call to keep Serra ahead. The way he coached that game was such an inspiration to me that it highlighted how much work I needed to put in to even get close to that level."

Martinelli credited Frank Rodriguez and Rich Dioli for giving him his first varsity coaching chance, as well as his players and coaching staff and, most important, his father who coached him back in the day and took him to many prep games and pointed out the better coaches. "He makes it to so many of my team's games and it means a lot to me," Martinelli said.

Regarding this season, said Martinelli, 40: "I expected good things coming in. We had some quality guys coming back including the player of the year in Corbin Koch. Any time you have the player of the year back, that's going to make you feel better. We won the Burlingame tourney and then after we won the Bellarmine tourney, I felt like we'd be pretty good."

Martinelli runs a tight enough ship, but not one that suffocates his players.

"It's more about the kids than what I'm doing," he said. "Our style of play lends itself to kids making creative decisions instead of me telling them what to do all of the time. I don't want kids feeling if they make a mistake they'll be taken out of the game. We like to press, push the tempo and get a lot of kids in the game. We use eight to 10 kids a game or more and that makes them feel a part of it."

Menlo had that disappointing loss to eventual CCS Open champ Serra 77-65 on Jan. 3 after leading by 10, but then the Gators got hot and piled up win after win including capturing 14 consecutive games in league.

Though SHP wasn't always challenged in league, its schedule was not Cupcake City. Besides Serra, it played Bellarmine, Riordan, St. Francis and Mitty, managing wins against Bellarmine and Riordan.

"Any program hoping to move into the higher echelon has to play the best and we set getting into the Open Division as our goal," Martinelli said. "You can't slip up or you'll miss your opportunity to play in the Open and playing three WCAL teams like we did in the Open is something that can't be replicated in non-league."

SHP lost two out of three games vs. WCAL schools in the Open, but Martinelli said he had more fun coaching in those games than any during the season.

For the former Mills High basketball and baseball player who has led the Gators to four league titles, five CCS titles and won NorCal title game, there are sure to plenty more enjoyable games ahead of him.

Corbin Koch

Eddie Stansberry

Dylan Belquist

Jimmy Wohrer

James Kelbert

Corbin Koch

Curtis Witt

Eddie Stansberry

Wyatt Maker

Ben Dorfman

Kaijae Yee-Stephens

Trevor Brown

Noah Stapes

Marquis Adkins

Tommy Nuno

David Parsons

Mo Abdulrasul

Kiree Hutchings