Santa Barbara High boys basketball proved seniority matters on Monday night in a 73-37 romp of rival San Marcos to clinch the Channel League title inside JR Richards Gym.
The senior-heavy Dons (23-5, 13-1 Channel League) capped off the regular season with one of their best defensive performances of the year to take down the junior-heavy Royals (21-7, 11-3 Channel League), who were playing for a share of the league title.
“This group, I’ve coached some of them since third grade, they’ve worked so hard and they deserved the league championship,” Santa Barbara High head coach Greg Zuffelato said. “San Marcos is a great group, their time is next year because they’re all juniors.”
“They were just ready to go and we weren’t… I think the environment was a little too big for us tonight,” San Marcos head coach Matthew Jordan said. “I think maybe with a younger team we came in a little high and a senior-led team just came in and kicked us in the teeth and we couldn’t really recover.”
Both the Dons and the Royals will continue their seasons in the CIF-SS playoffs, with divisions and first-round matchups being released on Saturday at 12 p.m. Santa Barbara High will most likely be slotted in Div. 2AA while San Marcos could find itself in Div. 2A based on the latest rankings.
“You never know when playoffs come along but I’m very confident that if we play that level of defense, it doesn’t matter who we face,” Zuffelato said.
“All we can do is play who’s in front of us,” Jordan said of his team’s playoff prospects. “We’ve got to get back to worrying about ourselves and not where we’re going to be.”
As for Monday night, the Royals got the scoring started with a layup from Aidan Conlan off an assist from Lincoln Gengo before Santa Barbara High’s Diesel Lowe caught fire.
Lowe ripped off eight straight points for the Dons on a three-pointer, a dunk in transition and another long ball to send the sold-out crowd into a frenzy and put the home team up 8-2.
“Diesel is so money,” Zuffelato said. “He is a gamer… in big games, he’s ready to roll.”
The two sides then exchanged buckets until Santa Barbara High led by a score of 10-6 with 2:01 left in the first.
Luke Zuffelato then found his stroke from deep, knocking down back-to-back three-pointers before Carter Battle hit a layup off a turnover to give the Dons a commanding 18-6 lead heading into the second.
Santa Barbara High came out of the break strong with a pair of long balls courtesy of Cayleb Miller and Battle to balloon the lead to 24-6.
San Marcos’ Danny Diaz then scored on a fastbreak layup to make it 24-8 with 5:42 left, but the Dons’ defense then took it to another level. They held the Royals scoreless for the remainder of the first half while the offense expanded the lead out to 39-8 by halftime.
Luke Zuffelato was in the middle of that dominant defensive effort, applying pressure to Koji Hefner, San Marcos’ top offensive option. Zuffelto held Hefner scoreless in the first half.
“Coach Hantgin has coached for a long time and he says Luke is the best defender he’s ever coached. I was pretty blown away by that comment because he’s coached a lot of great players,” Greg Zuffelato said. “Everybody did a fantastic job in the first half.”
Monday’s defensive masterclass was the latest in a string of strong performances by the Dons, who have held their last five opponents to less than 50 points.
“Something clicked during the Oxnard game (last week),” Greg Zuffelato said. “They’re doing everything we’ve been working on all year, they’re just doing it at a higher level now.”
San Marcos came out of the halftime break with some energy and outscored Santa Barbara High 18-13 in the third quarter behind 10 points from Hefner, who was able to break free from Luke Zuffelato several times.
Despite the solid quarter from the visitors, the Royals still trailed 52-26.
“Our offense is so predicated on getting Koji paint touches and Luke really hindered that in a big way,” Jordan said. “Credit to him, he’s an amazing player and their guys played really well.”
The fourth quarter featured players from up and down both rosters seeing playing time as the Dons had complete control of the game and eventually cruised to the 36-point win.
“I tried to get a lot of guys in just to be aware of the atmosphere,” Jordan said. “It was one of those nights, it happens in basketball… We just did not match their force more than anything.
“It was a rivalry game and we weren’t ready. It’s definitely a wake-up call to not get entitled and not take anything for granted. It’s a team effort and a collective effort and it’s a learning lesson. I hope we learn from it and respond to the adversity.”
Santa Barbara High’s big three of Luke Zuffelato, Lowe and Battle showed up for their final rivalry game with 23, 19 and 16 points, respectively. Miller also contributed 10 points off the bench.
“Carter played really well, Diesel played really well and Luke played really well,” Jordan said. “When your (opponent’s) best three guys play really well in a high school game it’s hard to win.”
As for the Royals, Hefner scored all of his team-high 12 points in the second half while also hauling in eight rebounds.
The two sides will begin their quests for CIF-SS titles next week with the brackets being announced on Saturday.