Basketball Recap: Thursday's Victory Is Pioneer's Eighth in Last Ten Outings

It can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but Pioneer had no problem doing just that on Thursday. They came out on top against the Oaks Christian Lions by a score of 56-49. Given the Titans' advantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 177th, while the Lions are ranked 373rd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Riley Almendarez

Field Goal Percentage

02/13/25 @ Oaks Christian	75%
02/04/25 @ Artesia	63%
02/01/25 @ Temescal Canyon	20%
01/31/25 vs Whitney	50%
01/28/25 vs Oxford Academy	40%
+ 12 more games

Pioneer found their leader in sophomore Riley Almendarez, who went 9-for-12 en route to 18 points. What's more, Almendarez also posted a 75% shooting accuracy, which is the highest she's achieved since back in January. Another player making a difference was Alissa Belen, who posted nine points.

Pioneer was working as a unit and finished the game with 17 assists. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Oaks Christian only racked up eight assists.

Oaks Christian lost despite a true team effort on offense. The best among them was Presley Kushner, who earned 16 points and five steals. The team also got some help courtesy of Andrea Woodward, who had 14 points along with five boards and four steals.

Pioneer is on a roll lately: they've won eight of their last ten games, which provided a nice bump to their 16-11 record this season. The wins came thanks in part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 58.2 points over those games. As for Oaks Christian, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 10-16.

Coming up, Pioneer will take on Marina at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. One thing working in Pioneer's favor is that they have posted at least 55 points in their last five contests. Oaks Christian does not have any more games scheduled as of now.