Jada Ahmad scored 30 points and the San Marcos High girls’ basketball team overcame a slow start to defeat rival Santa Barbara 54-22 on Monday night.
With only two seniors on the roster, the Royals have displayed steady improvement and eclipsed the 50-point mark for the second time this season against Santa Barbara.
“We’ve just been focusing on ourselves. We haven’t really been comparing ourselves to other teams,” said San Marcos coach Devin Uyesaka. “We’ve just been trying to work on our game and compete night in and night out.”
San Marcos got off to a slow start as Santa Barbara came out ready to play and took an 8-3 lead on a mid-range jumper by Ashley Barreto midway through the first quarter.
However, the Royals shifted from man-to-man into zone defense and Ahmad took control of the game with three three-pointers to give San Marcos a 12-10 lead going into the second quarter.
The second quarter featured a defensive clinic by San Marcos. The Royals outscored Santa Barbara 23-0 in the period, increasing their lead to 35-10 at halftime.
“In the second quarter, we forgot how to run a zone offense,” said Santa Barbara coach Andrew Butcher. “We really struggled with that, and it turned into a lot of easy shots for them.”
The Dons finally broke their scoring doubt, which spanned more than 11 minutes on the game clock with a Dayzia Mendoza free throw at the six-minute mark of the third quarter. Mendoza battled her way to 18 points despite an off shooting night.
Santa Barbara was without one of its top scorers and rebounders in senior Ella Popovich.
Ahmad made her seventh and final three-pointer with just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter, which increased the San Marcos lead to 45-13. She sat out the entire fourth quarter, in which Santa Barbara outscored San Marcos 7-6.
“Jada has a lot of responsibility as our main ball handler and one of our top scorers. She has handled it amazingly as a freshman,” Uyesaka said. “She is super mature for her age.”
Sophomore Giulia Gislimberti chipped in 10 points for San Marcos, and senior Sophia Hale added six points.
The victory snapped a six-game losing streak for San Marcos. The Royals are now 7-12 overall and 2-5 in Channel League play. Santa Barbara dropped to 2-15 and 0-7 in Channel League.