San Marcos loss ends season for Imperial girls

SAN MARCOS — On Friday night, the Imperial Tiger girls’ basketball team fell to the San Marcos Knights 57-32 in the quarterfinal round of the CIFSDS Division I playoffs, making it the second time in three seasons that San Marcos has put the kibosh on the Tigers’ playoff dreams.

In the two teams’ previous meeting — also in the quarterfinals — the Knights had been a mild underdog, a five seed on the road with a young, underclassman-heavy team and won a defensive struggle, 42-31.

This year, with many of the players from that 2017 team still around, San Marcos earned a two-seed, meaning the 10-seeded Tigers would be the ones needing to make some magic happen far from home.

The game began inauspiciously enough, with two teams sizing each other up in the first quarter, with a bucket here and a bucket there — San Marcos was only up three at period’s end (11-8) — but the wheels started coming off in the second for the Tigers, as the Knights expanded their advantage from three to 13 at the half.

Imperial’s situation didn’t improve after the break. They got blitzed 20-8 in the third quarter and couldn’t buy anything back in the fourth as they went down in defeat.

Turnovers were the story of the day. Neither team shot well — they both clocked in at 31 percent — but San Marcos had many more chances, thanks to their 20 steals, compared to Imperial’s six, and they made the most of them.

It was a tough way to go out for the Tigers, but the odds are they’ll be back next year.

They’ll lose senior leader Andrea Olguin and starter Sarina Cardona, but retain their dynamic backcourt of Monique Carrasco and Malena Ponchione, along with center Abby Ormand.

That should give them plenty of juice as they seek their 13th-consecutive Desert League title.