Monterey girls turning things around this year
Toreadores have had a tough decade achieving success in girls basketball, but not this season.
You would have to go back to when information was on a notepad instead of a website to figure out the last time Monterey put together a fivegame winning streak in girls’ basketball.
The Toreadores’ first five-game winning streak since 2003 coincides with their first 5-0 start in league play in 22 years. The eight overall wins to date are the most the program has recorded in a full season since 2011.
No question there have been some lean years of late, such as a winless season and a one-win campaign in the last decade.
Stability on the bench, though, starting with Monterey head coach Mark Clark is starting to pay dividends. There is a system in place, one that the core of this squad has been a part of for over two years.
The Toreadores are winning with defense, having not allowed an opponent over 30 points in Santa Lucia Division play.
Sharrell McDowell has been a double-double machine for Monterey for three years, with help this season coming from Jamaya McKay.
Kaitlin Manley has provided a scoring punch, while contributions have come from the likes of Jana Allouche, Tabatha Whitfield, McKenna Hersch and Dezirae Fernandez.
Not only does Monterey have experience, but it has depth.
Now the Santa Lucia Division is not the Gabilan Division. But this is why we have equity, allowing a program to rebuild and restore confidence in chasing its first league title since 1998.
King City boys making an early statement
Testing their talent meant getting out of their comfort zone.
King City went out and faced three Gabilan Division teams in the preseason. In all, eight of its nonleague games came against teams from higher divisions.
What King City proved was it could compete. It stunned Pacific Grove and lost to Alisal on the road by four. It also fell to St. Francis by three — which started the year with eight straight wins.
Battle-tested, the Mustangs have rattled off five straight wins for the first time since 2002, including their first two in the Santa Lucia Division, beating defending league champion Oakwood earlier this week.
The Mustangs, who have won just one league title in the last 40 years, have an abundance of scoring options, starting Angel Trujillo, who lit up one team with 38 points earlier year.
Devin Morales is averaging 18.5 points a game during King City’s winning streak, while
Alex Porcia chipped in with a 21-point effort. Earlier this year, Caleb Hood dropped in 32 points.
King City, which went over
100 points in a game earlier this season, will get out and push the tempo with its depth. It is also undefeated at home this year.
Seaside building off fast start in boys soccer
An entire generation has gone by since Seaside reached the postseason, playing for a Central Coast Section Division II boys soccer title in 1998.
The stability in the program has suffered over the past two decades. Seaside has produced just three winning seasons in the past 20 years.
Suggesting that confidence has been restored by a surprising start to the season wouldn’t be completely off base. Hope is turning into expectation.
Granted, the Spartans are just 2-0 in the Santa Lucia Division.
But at 4-2-1 overall, they’ve doubled their win total from last season.
The Spartans have produced 30 goals this year, which is five more goals than all of last season. The defense has not given up more than two goals in any one game.
And their two nonleague losses are by a goal to Mission Division nemesis Monterey and North County.
It doesn’t hurt having a scorer like Jeffry Reyes, who has produced a pair of hat tricks this year, including five goals in one game.
Hansel Cerna and Alexandro Guidino have been distributors in the midfield, putting defenses on notice with their aggressiveness.
The task will become more challenging with Stevenson on the horizon this week. Winning, though, does get contagious.
Weekend thoughts
Daeja Hollands is putting together one of the best freshmen girls basketball seasons at North Salinas since Renee McFarland in the mid-1990s, scoring 30 points in a 39-point win over Seaside.
With four goals last Friday, Jacky Vazquez set a new Seaside girl’s singleseason school soccer record for goals with 22.
After a 1-8 start to the preseason, North County has won six straight boys basketball games, using 18 points from Brandon Ducusin to beat San Benito and improve to 2-0 in the Mission Division.
Behind Joey Finley, Palma went on a 7-0 run late in the fourth quarter, turning a tie game into a 55-46 win over Pacific Grove, improving to 4-0 in the Gabilan Division.