The San Marcos girls held off a late Santa Barbara rally and prevailed 46-37 at JR Richards Gym Saturday to clear second place in the Channel League.
The Royals finish the league season at 8-2, a game behind 9-1 Dos Pueblos, winners at Santa Ynez Saturday. The Dons finish in a tie for third with Cabrillo at 5-5. Santa Barbara, as well as Dos Pueblos and San Marcos, moves on to the CIF-SS playoffs.
Except for a brief Santa Barbara lead of 4-3 in the first quarter, on back-to-back shots from freshman Elle Stone, the Royals led the entire game. Nine first-half points by sophomore Mia Martinez-Tomatis, along with a stifling full-court press, helped the Royals to a 20-15 halftime lead.
San Marcos extended the lead one time to double figures, at 27-17, midway through the third period. After that, the Dons continued to lurk within striking distance.
That strike came with 2:32 to go in the game when Stone hit a shot underneath and converted a subsequent free throw to pull the Dons within one at 35-34.
From there San Marcos won with patient, clock-burning ball movement and timely shots.
“That’s something we’ve been practicing, just being composed and patient throughout the whole game, not letting riffs and runs and ebbs and flows affect our game or get in our head,” Royals coach Tiffany Sims said.
A shot underneath by Oceanna Bauer, followed by a 3-pointer by Ellie Monson, extended the lead to 40-34 with a minute left.
Stone hit a 3-point shot with 40 second left to pull back to 40-37.
But the Royals wound many of those seconds down before Ariel Plourde scored on a drive and soon after hit two free throws to extend the lead to 44-37 with six seconds left. A steal and layup accounted for the final score.
Martinez-Tomatis led the Royals with 16 points, and Monson added 10 and Plourde nine. Stone led the Dons with 17 points and 13 rebounds.
Santa Barbara coach Andrew Butcher found positives for his young team in lessons learned protecting the ball.
“We turned the ball over for a good three and a half quarters,” Butcher said. “And then when we stopped turning the ball over, we were pretty good.
“… I told them that was a real positive to take out of this game, that we showed we can take care of the ball and make good decisions. I’ve coached some teams that never figure that out, and we figured that out tonight. So I thought it was a really great step for us.”
He said he was proud of the steps the Dons have taken this year, steps that bode well for the future.
“I always tell them it’s like dipping a candle,” he said. “You start with a little tiny wick and dip it, and after the 500th time you’ve got a really great candle.”
Both teams played a full week leading up to Saturday’s finale, but kept the intensity going. Simms said the Royals kept conditioning high during the recent Covid-imposed down time, and that was seen in the scrappy defense, which might have kept Stone’s point output a bit lower than normal.
“There’s not much you can do to contain Elle Stone,” Sims said. “She’s a great basketball player, her basketball IQ is high. What we can do is try to get in her head and try to make her work for her points and not let them come easy. And I think we did a good job of that.”
The Royals’ Plourde agreed with her coach on the value of composure.
“We’ve been really focusing on it recently, just keeping our mentality stable the whole game and not getting super low or super high,” she said. “Just keeping our mindsets positive and not quitting until the end of the game.”
The Royals, she said, keep it positive.
“We have a really close team this year, a really positive team,” she said. “We have a lot of love on our team — everybody cares about each other. A lot of support, and everyone wants to win so bad, everyone wants to play the game, everyone is here because they love it. And we all love each other, so it’s awesome.”