Athena Saragoza scored 28 points on Tuesday to lead the Santa Barbara girls basketball team to a decisive 69-29 victory at Dos Pueblos in the Channel League opener for both teams on Tuesday.
The Dons move to 1-1 on the season while the Chargers fall to 0-1.
Saragoza—the 11th top scorer in the state last season—demonstrated her basketball IQ and shooting touch all night. With Dos Pueblos struggling to stay in front of her, Saragoza was a three-dimensional scorer, shooting 11-19 from the floor, 3-7 from deep, and 3-3 from the free throw line.
“She just doesn’t take a lot of bad shots”, said Santa Barbara coach Andrew Butcher. “We do a shooting drill in practice that Kobe used to do, and she beats a lot of his scores.”
Two other Dons— Brianna Trujillo and freshman Chloe Adams—finished in double figures for Santa Barbara, chipping in 11 points and 10 points, respectively.
For the Chargers, freshman Justine Katz led the way with 8 points and 6 rebounds, while junior Lily Mires tallied 9 rebounds.
Despite only scoring 2 points on the evening, no player other than Saragoza had a bigger impact on the game than junior Jaeda Spence. She took advantage of her size and length against an undersized Chargers team, grabbing 14 rebounds on the night—including five on the offensive end.
In addition, Spence’s length caused Dos Pueblos’ offense problems throughout the game. On a night when Santa Barbara tallied 15 steals, Spence led the way with six, while Caia Trimble contributed with four.
“We have six players back from last year, which gave us a head start on the defensive end,” Butcher said. “We had a lot of quick hands and deflections tonight.”
In their first game in over a year, Dos Pueblos struggled mightily on the offensive end—especially in the first half. With the team down 40-12 at the half, coach Phil Sherman said he attempted to get the team to focus on the basics.
“We were a little shell-shocked and nervous to start the game, so we said we needed to get a little tougher, be a little smarter, and get back on defense”.
Santa Barbara’s ball movement was on display during Tuesday’s game. The Dons scored 23 points in both the second and third quarters — quarters which Butcher described as “near-perfect.”
“We have a lot of unselfish girls who like to get the assist and make the extra pass,” Butcher said. “Dos Pueblos is always tough with the zone defense, but I thought we executed the zone offense really well.”
Even in the lopsided defeat, Sherman said he was able to find positives in the team’s performance.
“We lost five starters from last year; we have five players on varsity who have only practiced for two weeks now,” he said. “Still, we have quite a bit of talent. I’m expecting us to do much better Thursday.”
The Chargers will look to get their first win of the season on Thursday when they take on Cabrillo at 7 p.m.
