Basketball Recap: Santana Falls Despite Big Games from Jose Garcia and Dain Diaz

Santana lost against West Hills back in January of 2024 and unfortunately they wound up with the same result on Friday. The Santana Sultans fell just short of the West Hills Wolf Pack by a score of 74-71. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game last Tuesday (62), the Sultans still had to take the loss.

Santana's loss came despite strong showings from Dain Diaz and Jose Garcia. Diaz dropped a double-double on 27 points and 16 boards, while Garcia posted 21 points along with six rebounds and six steals. Garcia continues to improve, besting his previous point total in each of the last four games he's played. Daxton Burroughs was another key player, putting up no points in addition to ten assists, five rebounds, and three steals.

Sultans

Assists

01/24/25 vs West Hills	17
01/21/25 vs Grossmont	13
01/14/25 vs El Cajon Valley	9
01/11/25 vs El Capitan	8
01/17/25 vs Valhalla	4

Even though they lost, Santana was working as a unit and finished the game with 17 assists. That's the most assists they've managed all season.

Malekai Dillon continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines for West Hills, going 6 of 11 from beyond the arc on his way to 25 points along with eight boards and four steals. The dominant performance also gave Dillon a new career-high in assists (four). Another player making a difference was Dalex Morris, who had 18 points in addition to eight assists and five rebounds.

Santana's defeat dropped their record down to 11-9. As for West Hills, their victory bumped their record up to 9-13.

Santana is taking a road trip to take on Granite Hills at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Santana is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 55.2 points per game this season. As for West Hills, they will head out to face off against Grossmont at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. West Hills also hasn't been messing around on offense: they've averaged 61.9 points per game.