Santa Ynez High runners-up for second straight season after narrow loss to Rosamond in Division V nail-biter
One would be hard-pressed to find a more evenly matched CIF championship game than the one that occurred the morning of Saturday, Feb. 28, at Selland Arena in Fresno.
The CIF Central Section Division V girls basketball final saw the Santa Ynez Pirates, seeded No. 5, go up against the No. 3 seed Rosamond Roadrunners. SYHS was returning to a section title game after being runners-up last year, while Rosamond was looking to win its third straight section championship.
Kicking off a stretch of six title games in Fresno on the day, the two teams battled in a contest that was extremely close for the entire 48 minutes. The end of the first period: tied. Halftime: tied. End of the third period: Santa Ynez up by one.
Then with less than a minute left in the game, the Pirates found themselves with the ball down by two. Two 3-point attempts missed, and then with 1.5 seconds left, SYHS couldn’t get the shot off an inbounds pass, and Rosamond earned that third straight title with a 43-41 victory.
Pirates head coach Jennifer Rasmussen commented on the close back and forth of the game after arriving back from Fresno on Saturday evening.
“It was such a difficult game, we had plans to pressure them on defense, but really didn’t do that,” she said. “We had swings there where we could have taken control, but they battled back, and we battled back, just back and forth like that all game.”
The Roadrunners got off to a quick start in the first period, scoring the first six points before senior forward Rylan Agin hit a three-pointer to get the Pirates on the board, and Elena Sleiman and Jazmine Juarez scored baskets to put SYHS up 7-6.
From there it was nip-and-tuck as the score was deadlocked six times, and neither team held a lead of more than six points at any time of the game.
After the teams came out of halftime tied at 20, Agin again hit a 3-pointer for the first points of the second half and the Pirates were able to lead 30-29 at the end of the third. SYHS was able to build a 34-31 lead with 6:40 left in the game, but then Rosamond went on an 8-0 to gain a lead it would not relinquish.
Rasmussen felt that the main problem was that her players strayed from their game plan for the contest.
“We couldn’t get the ball inside the paint, and we kept taking outside that wouldn’t go in,” she said. A look at the scoresheet bears that out: SYHS attempted 20 3-point shots and made only four, and shot just 30 percent from the field (16-of-53).
Rasmussen said another factor in the defeat was the disrepancy in foul shots: The Pirates had just six shots from the foul line (making five) to the Roadrunners 24.
“[The referees] were calling them on us, but there were some on there side that should have been called,” she said. “Right before halftime, there was contact that wasn’t called and that would have sent us to the line right before the half. There was that technical mistakes with the shot clock and I think the girls let it get to them.”
Despite all that, Rasmussen and the coaching staff had a lot of pride in the team’s effort.
“They should be proud,” she said. “We told them after that anything negative that happened today doesn’t take away from the performance they had that got them here.”
The Pirates’ effort was led by Agin, who tallied 15 points and grabbed four rebounds in the contest. She actually made all four of the Pirates 3-pointers in the game, and had a chance for a game-winner near the end, but the shots wouldn’t drop, before the unsuccessful shot to tie at the buzzer. After the game, she won the Fighting Spirit award given to each team’s player of the game.
“Rylan was kind of deflated afterward, but I told her to keep her head up,” Rasmussen said. “She played great.”
Helina Pecile added 11 points and a team-high nine rebounds despite being in foul trouble. She eventually fouled out with 52 seconds left.
The Pirates earned their spot in the championship game with a couple of road wins in the playoffs, including one over the division’s top seed.
On Friday, Feb. 20, SYHS knocked out No. 1 Coalinga High, overcoming a halftime deficit to defeat the Horned Toads 62-55.
Coalinga, whom Santa Ynez beat in the second round of the playoffs in 2025, came in as co-champions of the West Sierra League with a 23-8 overall record, but the Pirates were able to overpower them in the second half to erase a nine-point halftime deficit.
“I thought we controlled most of the game, but we had a letdown in the second quarter, which I don’t know why, but we have one quarter when we let down a bit,” Rasmussen said. “At halftime, I just stressed one basket at a time and just stop them and then score, and when we came out for the second half, that’s what we started doing, and we just played great team ball like we did to start the game.”
The Pirates allowed just eight points in the third quarter, which ended with them down just 39-37, and then scored 25 in the final quarter to overtake the Toads for the win.
Pecile was the top scorer for SYHS with 16 points, while Agin added 14, and Juarez 11. Pecile and Elliette Rasmussen brought down 7 rebounds each to tie for the team lead.
Before beating Coalinga, the Pirates traveled all the way up to Bishop on Feb. 18 and defeated host and No. 4 seed Bishop Union 47-25.
Santa Ynez received some more bad news on Sunday when the Pirates were left out of the CIF State Tournament pairings. That ends the season for Santa Ynez at 15-11, including a 4-6 record in the Sunset League.
