San Marcos Girls Play Santa Clara in Regionals

After squeaking past Southwest Saturday night to win the San Diego Section 2-A girls’ basketball championship, San Marcos High will face Santa Clara High from Oxnard in the state regionals tonight at Ventura College.

Santa Clara (24-4), champions of Ventura County’s Frontier League, have won all of their playoff games by at least 10 points. Three of their four losses this season came against Buena, one of the state’s top-ranked 4-A teams.

Santa Clara’s top scorer and rebounder, center Kathy Torres, averages 13.6 points and 7.6 rebounds a game. Torres gets help from forwards Kim Weich (11.0 points, 6.3 rebounds) and Cindy Fenske (10.8 points, 6.5 rebounds).

“Offensively, we’re very deliberate; we’re not what you’d call a run-and-gun team,” Coach Tom McConville said. “We usually play pretty good defense and control the boards pretty well. But if the other team has a good outside shooter and she has a hot night, we’re in a lot of trouble.”

Avocado League champion San Marcos (26-3) has two good shooters in guards Robin Paladino and Debbie Hartwig, both averaging more than 15 points a game. The Knights also have a significant height advantage over Santa Clara, whose tallest player is Torres at 5-7.

McConville said that all he knows about San Marcos is what he’s heard from scouting reports. “All I’ve heard is that they’re a little taller than we are, they’re a very aggressive and that I should expect a very physical game,” McConville said. “That’s fine with us, because that’s the way we like to play too.”