St. Joseph rolls past Arroyo Grande, improving to 19-1

Joe Bailey, Santa Maria Times, Calif.
·2 min read

May 15—St. Joseph led Arroyo Grande 42-36 at halftime of Thursday's Mountain League basketball game.

The Knights went on to win 92-59, out-scoring the Eagles 50-23 in the second half.

On Friday, the Knights didn't need halftime to regroup. They rolled from start to finish in their 86-31 win over Arroyo Grande, improving to 19-1 on the season.

Friday's win ran the Knights' scoring run to 136-54 since leading just by six at halftime of Thursday's game.

What spurred that run?

St. Joseph coach Tom Mott said it all starts with defense.

"We haven't been playing defense as well as we need to," Mott said. "Coach (Eliot) Davis, and really all the coaches, challenged our guys at halftime (Thursday) to play better 'D.' When we can play defense like that, we can create offense out of that and score a lot of points."

The Knights used a zone defense some against the Eagles Friday.

"A.G. does a good job of running their man offense and last night in the first half it gave us fits," Mott said. "But when you play the same team back-to-back nights you're able to make good adjustments and hats off to coach Davis for doing that. We'll play man most of the time but we'll mix a zone in as well."

Sam Bazunga had 16 points at halftime on Friday and finished with 18 as teammate Elijah Allen came off the bench and added 18 points as well. Angel Ortiz had 17 and Steven Vasquez finished with 11 points.

St. Joseph star Jincho Rivera went down with an ankle injury near the end of the first half and was helped off the court. He was on the bench for the rest of the game with his right ankle iced up.

"He'll be fine, he's tough," Mott said of Rivera. "He'll be back out there, I don't know if he'll be out there tomorrow, but he'll be back out there."

The Knights are scheduled to play at Woodland Hills Taft Saturday.

Girls basketball

Righetti 61, Nipomo 51

Alex Paquet led the Warriors with 17 points and Paityn Persson had 14.

Madisyn Cutliff and Abigail Salazar both chipped in 11 points as the Warriors moved to 9-1 overall and 7-1 in league.

Chloe Wells led Nipomo with 13 points as Kacie Slover added 12 points and 13 boards for the Titans. Kat Anderson scored 10 points for Nipomo.

Morro Bay 56, Santa Maria 36

The Saints finish their league campaign in third place at 6-4 after a loss to Morro Bay.

The Saints next play a non-league matchup vs. Valley Christian at home on May 22 at 6 p.m.