After battling with preseason and league opponents since November, all four of Santa Ynez High’s winter sports teams — boys and girls basketball, and boys and girls soccer — earned berths in this year’s CIF Central Section playoff brackets. Meanwhile, the Pirate wrestlers competed in the Central Section’s divisional tournaments, with six of them qualifying for the Section Masters Tournament this weekend in Fresno.
How did they all do? Here the roundup:
Molera’s treys, team defense carries girls basketball over Taft
The Pirates girls basketball team finished the regular season with a 12-10 overall record, including 4-6 in the Sunset League, and earned the fifth seed in Division V and a home game in the first round.
SYHS drew 12th-seeded Taft in the first-round game on Feb. 14, and the Pirates’ defense made its presence known early, shutting out the visiting Wildcats in the first period, and then riding the hot hand of senior guard Lexi Molera on its way to a 58-27 victory.
Molera led the team with 23 points, on the strength of seven 3-pointers, which was one short of the school’s single-game record. In fact, with the game well in hand late, Molera’s teammates kept feeding her the ball to tie or break the record, although she fell one short.
“I’ve been trying to beat the record forever, and I got close but just missed,” Molera said after the game. “Once I hit the first, it just kept flowing.”
The Pirates defense also impressed, rolling to a 12-0 advantage at the end of the first period, and a 27-7 margin at halftime.
“We’re a very defensive team overall,” Molera said. “We have short guards so we’re always hand checking to keep them off-balance.”
Pirates head coach Jennifer Rasmussen was very happy with the defensive performance.
“They were hustling, and they were just dominant,” the coach said. “We had Helina Pelice out there and she’s really good at anticipating steals and being in the right place to stop them.”
Pelice added 9 points for SYHS and dominated the boards along with teammate Elliette Rasmuseen as they had 15 rebounds apiece.
It had to be a gratifying performance from Pelice, who continues to recover from a sprained ankle suffered a couple weeks earlier.
“Yes, she really picked it up tonight,” said Coach Rasmussen of Pelice. “I’ve been bringing her along slowly with the injury; I think tonight was the first time since the injury she’s put in a full game.”
The Pirates moved on to a second-round matchup and a long road trip to Bishop to play fourth-seeded Bishop Union on Wednesday, Feb. 18 (results were not available at press time). If SYHS was able to pull that out, they would be playing again tonight (Feb. 20) against the winner of No. 1 Coalinga and No. 8 Sanger West. If Sanger was able to pull off the upset the game will be at Santa Ynez, but if Coalinga wins, then its back on the road for the Pirates.
Ladera scores twice as Pirates girls soccer beats Lompoc
While many Central Coast schools get matchups with San Joaquin Valley teams during the CIF playoffs, for the SYHS girls soccer team, their opponents were very familiar: the Lompoc High Braves.
The Pirates, 10-2-2 on the season a first-place finish (7-1-2) in the Ocean League and the fourth seed in Division III, met a Lompoc team that was 5-11-3, and 2-4-2 in the Sunset League (fourth place).
SYHS dictated the pace of the game all night, and Kailani Ladera scored two goals to lead the Pirates to a 3-0 victory.
Though the Pirates have been successful all this season, head coach Rob Cantrell feels his team is just now hitting its stride.
“This is our 14th game, and with a usual 28-or-so game season these players are used to, we feel we’re at midseason,” he said. “We’re working through the things a team needs to be working on at a midseason level. Tonight, we didn’t depend so much on our front and midfield, but we brought the defenders into the attack. That’s what they call ‘total football.'”
Cantrell felt his team started out a little hesitant, but picked up their game shortly into the first half, and junior midfielder Kailani Ladera opened the scoring with a long-range shot into the top corner of the net in the 13th minute, and that 1-0 lead would hold until halftime.
In the 43rd minute, junior Isabella Rubio added to the Pirates’ lead taking advantage of a funny bounce of a Braves defender and put it in the net, and Ladera scored off a shot in the 75th minutes to close the scoring.
For its second-round game on Tuesday, Feb. 18, SYHS played another Central Coast school, Pioneer Valley (14-5-3, 4-3-1 in the Sunset), with the result unavailable at press time. The winner of that game played the winner of No. 1 Torres and No. 8 Reedley in Thursday’s semifinal.
Boys basketball eliminated by Bakersfield North
The Santa Ynez High boys basketball team saw its season end Friday, Feb. 13, in Bakersfield as North High Stars beat the visiting Pirates 52-44 in a first-round Division III contest. The home Stars were a seventh seeded, while the Pirates were No. 10.
Despite 21 points from Mason Skidmore, SYHS was battling from behind since North jumped out to a 7-2 early lead. Aside from a brief 29-29 tie in the third period, the home team lead for the entire game.
The Pirates (16-12, 6-2 in the Sunset League for second place) finished the regular season in strong fashion, winning seven out of their last eight before the first-round loss.
SYHS boys soccer falls to host Riverdale
Santa Ynez, ranked No. 12 in Division IV, lost to fifth-seeded Riverdale High 4-2 in a first-round game played at Lemoore High School.
Santa Ynez went down to an early 2-0 deficit, until senior Marcos Rivera tied the score with two direct free kicks by halftime.
However, Riverdale’s Xaidyn Camacho, who had three goals and an assist for the game, helped Riverdale regain the lead and the Cowboys got one more goal, to close it out.
The Pirates end at 7-5-4, 3-2-3 (third place) in the Sunset League. Rivera and Vince Guerrero, both seniors, led the team with six goals apiece on the season.
Six Pirate wrestlers advance to Central Section Masters
The Santa Ynez Pirates qualified six wrestlers for the Central Section Masters Tournament, taking place on Feb 20-21 at Fresno’s Selland Arena.
Dallana Margarito (145 lb. sophomore) took fourth at the Girls D2 CIF tournament to qualify. Joey Duarte (285 lb. junior) took second, Neal Cunningham (157 lb. senior) took third, Curren Lane (144 lb. sophomore) and Kaj Kretzschmer (175 lb. senior) took fifth and Hayden Pahler (165 lb. junior) took seventh at the Central Section D3 Boys CIF Tournament. Out of the 4 girls and 9 boys competing we had 6 qualify for Masters.
“The Pirates have been working hard all year and are performing their best in the postseason,” said Sean Yamasaki, the first-year wrestling coach. “I am beyond proud of this team and the effort they have put in and I am super excited for this next tournament and the future of our team.”
Some notable matches from the weekend were Hayden Pahler winning his seventh-place match with a last-second takedown to qualify for Masters. Luke Elliot, despite not qualifying had his best tournament of the year with two pins to make the second day of the tournament. And Neal Cunningham won his third place match in overtime.
