Santa Barbara High girls basketball coach Andrew Butcher didn’t show his team any preferential treatment when bracketing the Tournament of Champions.
The Dons will open their annual 16-team tournament on Wednesday against a strong Sierra Canyon team at 3 p.m. at J.R. Richards Gym.
Sierra Canyon (5-0), the No. 1-ranked team in the CIF-SS 4-A Division, is the defending CIF Division 5 state champion and returns two star players, Kennedy Burke and Cheyanne Wallace. Kennedy won Division 5 State Player of the Year honors and Wallace was an all-state selection. Both players are over 6 feet.
Santa Barbara (7-1) has won two tournaments in December (Lompoc and Gold Coast) behind the play of sophomores Amber Melgoza and Jada Howard and senior Dezzy Coleman. The Dons are ranked No. 2 in the 3-AA Division
Orange Lutheran returns to defend its title in the Gold Division. The top-seeded and 2-A Division second-ranked Lancers face Buena in a challenging opener Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. They are led by sophomores Taelor Griffin and Gloria Bates.
The tournament is divided into Gold and Green divisions. The Gold Division is a 16-team bracketed competition, while the Green Division features six teams playing a round-robin format. All Green Division games are at San Marcos. The Gold Division games will be at Santa Barbara, Carpinteria and San Marcos. The semifinals are Friday at 6 and 7:30 and the championship is Saturday at 7:30 p.m., all at Santa Barbara.
Ten tournament teams are ranked in the CIF polls. Besides Sierra Canyon, Orange Lutheran and Santa Barbara, second-seeded Ventura is No. 2-ranked in the 1-A Division, Oak Park is third in 3-A, Redondo Union is sixth in 2-AA, Rosary is sixth in 4-AA, Buena is eighth in 1-A, Harvard Westlake is 9th in 4-AA and Rio Mesa is 10th in 2-A.
Rounding out the tournament field are Edison, San Clemente, Clovis North, Arroyo Grande, Pioneer Valley and Pacifica.
The Green Division teams are San Marcos, Santa Ynez, Hueneme, Nordhoff, Santa Monica and Carpinteria.
Players to watch in the Gold Divisions:
5-5 junior Teeana Cotangco, 6-0 freshman Camille Oswald and 5-5 freshman Sydney Tsutsui of Harvard Westlake; 5-9 senior Lori Gomez and 5-8 sophomore Alyssa Atencio of Edison; 5-10 senior Jessie Degree, 5-10 Jenna Rodriguez and 5-6 guard Kathleen Hartman of San Clemente; 5-11 Marki Meyer and 6-1 Cassandra McCambridge of Ventura; 5-4 senior Courtney Wing and 5-4 junior Taylor Kariya of Oak Park.
