Basketball: Buena, Camarillo and Oxnard boys, Oak Park girls advance to regional semis

Their boys basketball teams have progressed as far as any public schools in Ventura County history.

Now which will make history Saturday?

Buena High, Camarillo High and Oxnard High all advanced to CIF-State Southern California regional semifinals Thursday with quarterfinal wins on the road.

Luke Ortiz had 14 points, five rebounds and three blocks and Zane Carter finished with 13 points and five rebounds as No. 8 Buena upset top-seeded La Jolla Country Day School, 48-44, in the Division III quarterfinals.

“It’s pretty special,” Buena coach Matt Colton said.

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Daniel Ortiz had nine points and seven rebounds, Colin Guenther had eight points and five assists and Josh Ullegue had four points and five rebounds as the Bulldogs (29-5) advanced to host a Division III semifinal Saturday night against Camarillo at Joe Vaughan Gymnasium.

“Being an No. 8 seed, people kind of underestimate us a little bit,” Colton said. “We match up differently than people understand. They weren’t sure what we were going to give them.”

Senior guard Chase Aronowitz had 17 points as Camarillo handled host North Hollywood-Oakwood, 54-37, in another Division III quarterfinal.

“Oakwood is a talented team,” Camarillo coach Brendan Garrett said. “We just defended. We’ve been defending all postseason extremely well.”

Aronowitz hit four 3-pointers to give him 142 as a senior, which breaks the Ventura County’s single-season record of 141 set by Oxnard’s Andrew Ramirez in 2019-20.

Joshua Castaniero scored 15 points, Tyler Hook had 10 points and Marcos Jaquez added eight points for Camarillo (21-13), which built a 40-25 lead after three quarters.

“Our kids have continued to believe in what we’re doing,” Garrett said.

Camarillo’s semifinal at Buena on Saturday will be the furthest in the postseason two county boys basketball programs have met.

“We have some pretty good players up here,” Garrett said of the county. “We have some pretty darn good coaches up here. This is a reflection of that. We’re excited for the community. This is great for the basketball scene up this way.”

Trailing 28-26 at the half, Buena took over in the third quarter.

Daniel Ortiz’s breakaway layup gave the Bulldogs the lead for good at 31-29. His 3-pointer late in the quarter gave the Bulldogs their biggest lead, 42-31.

“We did everything right in the third,” Colton said. “We defended the heck out of them.”

Down 44-31 entering the fourth quarter, La Jolla Country Day used a 12-0 run to pull within 44-43 with less than four minutes to play.

“They’re a good team defensively,” Colton said. “They switch well. They move well. They stay in front well. But that fourth quarter … we missed at least six layups.”

Guenther drew consecutive offensive fouls to turn the tide and Luke Ortiz made three late free throws to put the game away.

“He’s just so darn smart,” Colton said of Guenther. “He knows where to stand.”

Buena edged Camarillo 63-59 when the two teams met on Jan. 2. They were a round away from a rematch in the CIF-Southern Section Division 3AA final. Now they meet with chance to join Santa Clara (and perhaps Oxnard) as the only county schools to play for a regional title.

“This is the challenge,” Colton said of Camarillo. “People have not matched up well with them coming through the playoffs.”

Oxnard moves on

Senior Reese Widerburg hit six 3-pointers and finished with 24 points, seven rebounds and five assists as the Oxnard High boys basketball held off host La Mirada, 61-58, Thursday night in the CIF-State Division II Southern California regional quarterfinals.

Bobby Barajas had 13 points and four rebounds and E.J. Gomez added eight points for the Yellowjackets (30-3), which reached the regional semifinals for the third time in seven years.

“First time it’ll be at our place though,” said Oxnard coach Jeff Staniland, whose teams have lost recent regional semifinals at Ontario-Colony and St. Francis. “It added a little motivation for our guys.”

Fifth-seeded Oxnard (30-3) will host No. 9 Newport Beach-Pacifica Christian (25-9) on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Staniland singled out the play of E.J. Gomez, Nathaniel Gomez and Lukas Rea off his bench.

“We had some guys off the bench that really came in and gave us a spark which was great,” Staniland said.

Oxnard led the CIF-SS Division 2A finalist 26-21 at the half and built a 50-39 after three quarters on one of Widerburg’s six 3-pointers.

La Mirada made a late run to cut the Oxnard lead to 59-58 in the final minute, but Oxnard survived a pair of game-tying 3-point attempts in the final 16 seconds.

“Every good team at home is going to make that final push at you,” Staniland said. “We made (free throws) when we absolutely had to and got a couple stops. … We’ll take it.”

Oak Park girls win again

Freshman Delaney White scored five of her 30 points in overtime to lead the Oak Park girls basketball team to a 60-51 victory over third-seeded Cathedral Catholic in San Diego on Thursday night to advance to the CIF-State Division III regional semifinals.

The 11th-seeded Eagles won their second straight state playoff game after capturing the CIF-SS Division 5A title last Saturday. White also scored 30 points in a 71-60 win at sixth-seeded Tehachapi on Tuesday.

Lindsay Gould scored nine points, Jaelah Brown had eight points and Ella Shmool added six points for Oak Park. The Eagles will play at second-seeded Redondo Union on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Joe Curley covers high school, collegiate and professional football for The Star. He can be reached at joe.curley@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcspreps on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Buena, Camarillo and Oxnard advance to boys basketball regional semis