Girls’ basketball: Santa Monica’s Bianka Balthazar receives clearance

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Santa Monica’s 5-foot-11 junior Bianka Balthazar received clearance today to play.

This is huge news for the Vikings (14-5, 4-0), who recently upset Troy and Inglewood, and play Mater Dei, ranked second in the Southland by The Times, on Saturday at 8 p.m.

‘It adds a whole new dimension that we just didn’t have before,’ Santa Monica Coach Marty Verdugo said of Balthazar, who had moved from Arizona and had been awaiting Southern Section permission to play this season. ‘She can handle the ball and she brings the toughness that we need inside.’

No. 7 Santa Monica has three Division I-level players in UCLA-bound Thea Lemberger, Moriah Faulk -- who received clearance to play last month -- and Balthazar.

‘We were playing really good ball, and this will help strengthen us,’ Verdugo said. ‘Anytime in a girls game if you can add a Division I player on the floor, it’s going to change things a little bit.’

-- Melissa Rohlin