Amber Melgoza did everything she could to help Santa Barbara High’s girls basketball team against Ventura on Tuesday in a showdown of CIF No. 1 ranked teams.
Melgoza poured in 29 points, but Ventura used tough man-to-man defense and its size advantage to shut down the other Dons players and win the Channel League game, 64-47, at JR Richards Gym.
Ventura’s win all but clinched the league title. The Cougars, top-ranked in the CIF-SS Division 1A, are 5-0 in league and 21-2 overall.
Santa Barbara, the No. 1 team in Division 3A, fell to 4-2 (both losses to Ventura) and 19-5 overall.
Melgoza scored some spectacular baskets, throwing in shots while knifing through or bouncing off defenders, hitting mid- and long-range jumpers and making layups after dribbling coast-to-coast.
“I wish she had 35 or 45,” Santa Barbata coach Andrew Butcher said. “She missed maybe 5-6 two footers, but sometimes you have to take what the defense gives you, and they were playing her straight up with a defender that wasn’t giving her a lot of trouble. So, we went to that as much as we could. I wish we’d done it more.”
While Melgoza was tearing it up, the Dons couldn’t get anyone else in double figures. They also struggled in defending and blocking out Ventura’s post players. Five-foot-11 Marki Meyer, 6-1 Cassandra McCambridge and 6-2 Barbara Rangel had their way in the paint. They accounted for 34 of the Cougars’ points, led by Meyer with 14.
“We had six defensive rebounds in the first half and you can’t beat a grade school team with six defensive rebounds in a half,” Butcher said. “A lot of that is effort and, of course, position. When you play a good team, the little things will hurt you and we didn’t do the little things.”
Ventura took full advantage of its height advantage.
“We obviously have a huge size advantage and I’d be dumb not to take advantage of it,” Ventura coach Anne Larson said. “We’re very fortunate right now to have a big team and have kids that can catch the ball and make easy shots. It’s hard to defend that when someone is a foot taller than you out there.”
Santa Barbara, which lost by only five points (56-51) in its first meeting with Ventura, fell behind early on Tuesday. Meyer and McCambridge were the catalysts. The Dons, meanwhile, hurt themselves with turnovers.
Meyer had seven points in the first quarter and McCambridge went off for 12 points in the second quarter, leading Ventura to a 38-22 halftime advantage.
“We had to work especially hard against them,” Larson said. “We know they have some key players that can hurt us. Obviously, Amber and Dezzy are two really good players, and the other kids on the team are as well.”
Ventura’s lead got up to 50-25 at the midway points of the third quarter before Santa Barbara started playing its game. The Dons were on the run and went on a 10-0 spurt to end the period.
“I thought the second half the effort was there but when you play a real strong team you need 32 minutes of effort. So, that was definitely disappointing,” said Butcher.
“I told the kids at halftime, ‘They are going to make a run. It’s going to happen, it’s going to get frantic. They’re going to get on a roll, they’re going to make shots.’ And they did,” said Larson of the second half. “It made me look smart, but then again it didn’t make me look smart because they cut it way down. Good thing it’s not a five-quarter game.”
Santa Barbara got as close as 12 points (51-39) before the shots stopped falling. Ventura reclaimed control of the game as the Cougars scored the next nine points. The run was capped by a nice sequence of passes to break Santa Barbara’s press and Meyer feeding Rangel for a layup.
“There is a good lesson to be learned here but you really don’t have to learn it,” Butcher said. “You’d rather execute your offense, box out on defense and play hard. But today that was a little bit too much for us.”
