Soccer Game Preview: Ventura vs. Santa Barbara

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Previous Games

01/27/24 - Home	2-0 W
01/23/24 - Away	5-1 W
01/21/23 - Home	3-0 W
12/13/22 - Away	3-0 W
12/22/21 - Neutral	1-1 T
+ 5 more games

Ventura has gone 9-0-1 against Santa Barbara recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Thursday. The Ventura Cougars will head out to take on the Santa Barbara Dons at 5:15 p.m. Neither squad made it on the board the last time they hit the pitch, so they've probably got a bit of extra motivation.

Ventura is likely headed into the matchup with a focus on the second half, which is when things went downhill against San Marcos on Tuesday. Ventura fell just short of San Marcos by a score of 2-1. While losing is never fun, the Cougars can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California soccer rankings (they are ranked 650th, while the Royals are ranked 288th).

Meanwhile, Santa Barbara has been on a difficult stretch since their win on December 2. They lost 6-0 to Buena on Tuesday.

Santa Barbara now has a losing record at 3-4-1. As for Ventura, their loss dropped their record down to 2-5-3.

Ventura was able to grind out a solid victory over Santa Barbara when the teams last played back in January of 2024, winning 2-0. The rematch might be a little tougher for Ventura since the team won't have the home-pitch advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.