Santa Barbara is 2-8 against Ventura since January of 2018 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Saturday. The Santa Barbara Dons will be playing at home against the Ventura Cougars at 4:00 p.m.
Santa Barbara is headed into Saturday's matchup looking for a big change in momentum after dropping their eighth straight game on Thursday. They had to suffer through a 56-25 loss at the hands of Oxnard. While losing is never fun, the Dons can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 805th, while the Yellowjackets are ranked 89th).
Meanwhile, Ventura had already won 23 in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 28.2 points) and they went ahead and made it 24 on Thursday. They beat the Spartans by the very same score they won with in their prior game: 76-20. The Cougars have made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won 15 contests by 22 points or more this season.
Ventura's win came from a few key players Santa Barbara will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was Kailee Staniland, who dropped a double-double on 17 points and 14 assists. Her evening made it four games in a row in which she has scored at least ten points. The team also got some help courtesy of Brinley Anderson, who posted 19 points in addition to seven rebounds and three steals.
Ventura pushed their record up to 25-2 with the victory, which was their 12th straight on the road. Those victories came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 64.2 points per game. As for Santa Barbara, their loss dropped their record down to 2-19.
Santa Barbara was dealt a bruising 82-7 defeat at the hands of Ventura when the teams last played back in January. That game was all but decided by halftime, at which point Santa Barbara was down 43-3.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
