The Santa Paula Cardinals had already won three in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 37 points), and they went ahead and made it four on Tuesday. They enjoyed a cozy 54-38 win over Malibu. Santa Paula pushed the score to 47-26 by the end of the third, a deficit Malibu cut but never quite recovered from.
Santa Paula's success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Alyse Ramirez led the charge by scoring nine points along with six steals and five rebounds. Ramirez hasn't dropped below two steals for three straight games. Aryanna Lopez was another key contributor, scoring 16 points along with six rebounds and two steals.
Despite the loss, Malibu still got an impressive performance from Casey Ovsiowitz, who dropped a double-double on 21 points and 11 rebounds.
Santa Paula is on a roll lately: they've won five of their last six contests, which provided a nice bump to their 14-8 record this season. As for Malibu, they dropped their record down to 6-7 with that loss, which was their fifth straight at home.
Santa Paula will head out on the road to square off against Fillmore at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully Fillmore focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 28 on Wednesday. Malibu won't have much time to rest: their next game is against Hueneme at 6:00 p.m. on January 17th. Hueneme is still on the hunt for that elusive first 'W'.
