Cats, Cents pick up tourney wins

Girls hoops: West Ranch dominates with young roster; Saugus continues preleague winning streak

West Ranch girls basketball dominated on Wednesday night in the Northeast Valley Girls Basketball Tournament, beating Animo Bunche 66-10 at Vaughn International Studies Academy.

“We’ve been on the other end recently of some losses and it just builds character and that’s what I tried to instill in the girls,” said Wildcats coach Carlos Fandino. “We need to grow as a team and understand that we have to get back to fundamentals and execute regardless of who our opponent is. But I’m super proud of all my girls regardless of the wins and losses.”

Harneet Arora led the team with 13 points and Ariel Miron followed with 10.

West Ranch has a relatively young team this year with three incoming freshmen on the varsity roster and a handful of other players coming directly from the freshman team.

With the youth, senior Jacqueline Paul has taken on a leadership role, especially during the Wildcats’ time at the Northeast Valley Girls Basketball Tournament.

“She really led our team as far as emotionally and has been the catalyst as far as keeping us in check and motivating us,” Fandino said. “Yesterday, she did some phenomenal things as our center. We asked her to do a lot of rebounding, but yesterday, she ran some point guard for us, which was fun to see her stand out.”

The Wildcats return to tournament action today against Westlake at Vaughn at 6 p.m.

Saugus 71, Chatsworth 26

Alexis Jimenez lead the team with 16 points and five assists. Maliah Sourgose had 10 points and Monique Febles chipped in 15 points and six rebounds.

The Centurions are now on a five-game win streak and improve to 8-1 overall on the season.