It wasn’t the kind of performance Santa Barbara displayed in big wins over Ventura and Buena this season, but it was enough for the Dons to slip past scrappy Paso Robles in a first-round game of the CIF Division III-A girls basketball playoffs.
Tess Emerson scored 14 points and Rebecca Griffin added 11 to lead Santa Barbara to a less-than-satisfying 53-38 win over the Bearcats at J.R. Richards Gym on Thursday night.
The Dons (21-6) will play either El Monte or Irvine in the second round on Saturday. Paso Robles, the sixth-place team from the Pac-7 league, finishes with a 9-16 record.
Despite experiencing a tough night shooting the ball, the Bearcats stayed close for a half against the fifth-seeded Dons. They trailed by just six, 24-18, at halftime.
Strong rebounding on the offensive glass helped keep Paso Robles from being run off the court by Santa Barbara’s torrid transition game. The Bearcats, however, had trouble converting those rebounds into points. Kati Sheldon was a force on the boards, battling for a whopping 19 rebounds to go along with a game-high 15 points.
“Our shooting was poor and our rebounding was very poor,” Santa Barbara coach Andrew Butcher said. “So we’ll try to clean it up by Saturday. If we play like that on Saturday, we’ll be done.”
Butcher said Paso Robles couldn’t be taken lightly. “They beat Righetti a week ago and Righetti is a very good team,” he said. “They are scrappy and aggressive, and we knew they could cause some problems.”
But the Bearcats struggled to make shots and that gave the Dons a huge advantage.
“That’s been our M.O. all year,” Paso Robles coach Mike Grey said. “We always have that one bad quarter. Tonight it was the third.”
Paso Robles made only one of 20 shots in the quarter.
Santa Barbara, doing good job of taking care of the basketball and distributing it for open shots, outscored the Bearcats 13-5 in the third quarter to open up a 37-23 advantage.
“The fact we didn’t turn the ball over saved us today,” said Butcher.
SANTA BARBARA 53, PASO ROBLES 38
PASO ROBLES —Merrill 2, Davis 2, Sheldon 15 Bilderback 2, Kuhns 2, Perry 2, Buchanan 2, Donovan 9. Terry 2. Totals 15 8-10 38.
SANTA BARBARA — Gil 8, Lloyd 4, Griffin 11, Emerson 14, Kerns 8, Pereyra 4, Hoover 2, Echternacht 2. Totals 22 8-14 53.
Paso Robles…10 8 5 14 — 38
Santa Barbara…12 12 13 16 — 53
3-point goals—PR 0, SB 1 (Griffin). Total fouls—PR 9, SB 9.
