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Monday NBA— Warriors at Raptors, 4 p.m., CSNB NFL— Steelers at Bengals, 5:30 p.m., ESPN NHL— Coyotes at Red Wings, 4:30 p.m., VERSUS Sports 1B Monday November 8, 2010 Mercy earns playoff berth Corning to host Pleasant Valley FOOTBALL With an 8-2 season Corning was rewarded with their sec- ond home playoff game in as many years as the NSCIF unveiled its postseason football brackets, Saturday. The Cardinals will host Pleasant Valley in one Division-I first round game, while Chico travels to Shasta on the other side of the bracket. Paradise and Foothill received first round byes. Defending champion Enterprise did not make the play- offs. The Division-VI tournament is made up of the top four places in each of the section’s two 8-man leagues. With a fourth place finish in the North, Mercy will travel to South champion Westwood. Hayfork is the defending champion. In Division-II, Wheatland earned the top seed and defending champion Lassen the No. 2. Anderson travels to Sutter and Central Valley to West Valley in the first round. In Division-III Live Oak and Durham earned byes. Defending champion Trinity hosts Esparto and Williams travels to Willows. With no Division-V this season, the Divi- sion-IV tournament was expanded to eight teams. Teams making the playoffs in order of seeds were: Maxwell, Quin- cy, Modoc, Hamilton, Fall River (2009 D-V champion), Chester, East Nicolaus and defending champion Portola. Division I Daily News photo by Rich Greene Mercy’s Michael Uhalde tries to avoid the Happy Camp defense, Saturday. 8-MAN Happy Camp 20 Mercy 56 By RICHGREENE DN Sports Editor Not a bad first year of 8-man foot- ball. The Mercy Warriors clinched a playoff spot, Saturday, with a 56-20 win over Happy Camp, in a game filled with so many penalty flags, even a fan got one. However yellow hankies and the Indians defense couldn’t slow down Mercy’s ground attack, which racked up 533 rushing yards and seven touch- downs. Quarterback Mitchell Lopez rushed 32 times for 337 yards and three scores and tailback Royce Crane piled on four touchdowns with 123 yards on 12 car- ries. Happy Camp all but abandoned their rushing attack, utilizing the pass to test a Mercy defense that had been porous throughout the season. But with fourth place in the Califor- nia — North 8-man league and a play- off spot on the line the Warriors’ defense played their best game of the season. Michael Uhalde had an interception and the Mercy defense forced a fumble and recorded three sacks — two by Crane and one from Nick Feser. Although the NSCIF had not released the official Division-VI play- off bracket as of Sunday evening, Mercy officials were gearing up for a road game at Westwood to open up the first round. Mercy gave the Indians a taste of what to expect, Saturday, on the first drive. So did the officials. The Warriors marched 70 yards on 17 plays — all runs. The drive featured five penalties, including a block below the belt call on Happy Camp on a Mercy fourth down. While Lopez came up short on the play, officials gave Mercy the yardage from the play, plus the penalty yardage and let them replay fourth down. Mercy took advantage of the fifth down and Lopez went on to cap the drive with a 2-yard score. The Warriors built up a 32-0 lead in a first half that came to a screeching halt when a Happy Camp player had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital after a vicious hit. Coaches and officials reported the ambulance trip was precautionary. Happy Camp managed to get on the board just before halftime when a 32- yard pass play burnt the Warriors defense in the waning seconds. With just seconds to go Mercy almost responded when Uhalde took a Lopez pass inside the 5-yard line before being tackled as time expired. Happy Camp came out slinging the ball in the second half and needed just three plays to score a 43-yard touch- down pass to pull within 32-12. But they couldn’t stop the Warriors. Mercy and Happy Camp continued to trade touchdowns until the Warriors’ defense made a stop with the score 48- 20. That’s when Uhalde picked off a Happy Camp pass near the goal line Two drives later Crane capped the scoring and sealed the game with his fourth touchdown run. Mercy converted all seven 2-point conversions they tried. Raiders beat Chiefs in overtime Kansas City 20 Raiders 23 OT OAKLAND (AP) — As the Oak- land Raiders poured out onto the field to celebrate Sebastian Janikowski’s overtime kick, the 13 penalties, three turnovers and long stretches of offen- sive ineptitude were merely a footnote. The Raiders won their biggest game in nearly eight years and are once again a contender in the AFC West. Jason Campbell threw a 47-yard pass to rookie Jacoby Ford in overtime to set up Janikowski’s winning 33-yard field goal that capped Oakland’s 23-20 victory over the division-leading Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. ‘‘It wasn’t the way we draw it up but it was the way it was supposed to be,’’ coach Tom Cable said. ‘‘We hung in there, fought, hung in there, fought, got a chance, made a couple of plays, made two kicks and now we’re all happy. It’s a great job by our team of really pulling together.’’ Campbell and Ford hooked up on a 29-yard pass in the closing seconds of regulation to set up Janikowski’s tying 41-yard field goal. The Raiders (5-4) then won it in overtime for their most significant victory since winning the 2002 AFC championship. Oakland hasn’t had a winning record at any time since being 2-1 in 2004 and not this late since ’02. By winning their third straight game for the first time since that sea- son, Oakland heads into its bye week just a half-game behind Kansas City (5-3). ‘‘This win was probably the win that does wonders for our season,’’ Campbell said. The Chiefs won the overtime toss but were unable to generate a first down. Campbell then hit Ford on a div- ing catch on the first play for Oakland. Ford, a fourth-round pick, caught six passes for 148 yards and returned the opening kick of the second half for a See OT, page 2B Friday 7 p.m. #6 Chico (4-6) #3 Shasta (7-3) #2 Foothill (9-1) #5 Pleasant Valley (6-4) #4 Corning (8-2) #1 Paradise (9-1) Division VI Fri/Sat N3 Dunsmuir (8-2) S2 Champion Christian (6-2) S4 Loyalton (4-6) N1 Hayfork (9-0) S3 Princeton (4-5) N2 Butte Valley (8-1) N4 Mercy (5-3) S1 Westwood (8-2) Hamilton, Stuckey lead Pistons over Warriors Warriors 97 Detroit 102 AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Rodney Stuckey was- n’t thinking about redemption on Sunday night. He might have gotten some anyway. Stuckey finished a tumultuous five-day stretch with 21 points and nine assists to help the Detroit Pistons beat the Golden State Warriors 102-97. Stuckey’s problems started early in the second half of Wednesday’s loss in Atlanta. After he ignored coach John Kuester, he was benched for the rest of the game. He remained on the sidelines for Friday’s win over Char- lotte — Detroit’s first victory of the season — but was back in the starting lineup against Golden State. ‘‘That doesn’t matter now — this was just another game,’’ Stuckey said. ‘‘The only thing on my mind tonight was to go out there and do my job.’’ The win gave the Pistons two in a row as they head into a four-game, six-day road trip. ‘‘When you are going to the West Coast, it is always important to have a good performance in your last home game,’’ Kuester said. ‘‘I’m not sure this was beautiful bas- ketball tonight, but we got another win, and two in a row feels good when we are heading west.’’ Golden State, which hasn’t lost in four home games, is now 0-2 on the road. ‘‘We need to learn how to win these games on the road,’’ said Golden State coach Keith Smart. ‘‘It is tough to travel, but you have to be ready. I knew that team has a lot of pros who were going to get after us, and they did.’’ Richard Hamilton, who came off the bench against Char- lotte after missing two games with a foot injury, finished with 27 points after moving back into the starting lineup. Charlie Villanueva added 16 points and 10 rebounds off the bench for Detroit, while Tayshaun Prince scored 14. Monta Ellis led Golden State with 24 points and Dorell Wright had 19. ‘‘We still need to establish our identity on the road,’’ said David Lee. ‘‘We haven’t had much time to do that yet — this was only our second road game, and this was the first one that was close. We just had too many careless mistakes tonight. Fixing that will come with time.’’ The Warriors started the second half with an 18-5 run and led 76-73 going into the fourth quarter. Hamilton, though, scored seven points in the first two minutes of the period to give Detroit a five-point advantage. Stuckey and Ben Gordon both hit 3-pointers as the shot MCT photo Jacoby Ford reaches for a catch during Sunday’s overtime. clock expired, keeping the Pistons ahead, but an Ellis jumper pulled the Warriors within 96-95 with 2:33 left. Villanueva answered with a basket, and Stephen Curry’s tying 3-pointer rattled in and out with 13 seconds left. Nov. 19/20 Nov. 24 *Unofficial Nov. 19 Nov. 24