Saddleback Women Are Dominant Going Into Playoffs

Expectations for the Saddleback women’s basketball team were pretty high this season, but the Gauchos have met every one so far.

Saddleback is 27-0, and finished 14-0 in the difficult Orange Empire Conference. The victory total is a single-season record for Saddleback.

The Gauchos haven’t been just getting by opponents either.

Saddleback has outscored the opposition 79-50 on average and won by 20 or more points 16 times.

Saddleback finished the regular season by beating Golden West, 92-62, and Riverside, 76-51, in the final week.

“We’re basically back to the level we were playing at in the middle of the season,” Coach Jack Single said.

One of the main reasons Saddleback, which has only eight players, has remained so consistent is because the Gauchos don’t count on outside shooting often. By concentrating on keeping the ball inside, Saddleback takes higher-percentage shots than most opponents.

Forwards Cha-Ron Walker and Shanna Renken lead the team in scoring, each averaging 15 points. Each also shot 46%. Walker, a sophomore who has signed with Arizona, also led in rebounds with 12 per game. Renken, a freshman, averaged six.

The front line was aided by the improved performance of freshman reserve forward Nekeda Allen. She averaged nine points and seven rebounds.

Maureen Skehan, a sophomore guard, keyed the Gauchos’ aggressive defense. She set a single-season record with 125 steals and is also the college’s career leader with 238. Skehan averaged 13 points.

The next step is the playoffs. The men’s and the women’s Southern California pairings will be announced today and first-round games are Friday and Saturday.

Saddleback spent the season ranked second behind Ventura, which also is undefeated. But Single isn’t willing to concede the top spot to the Pirates.

“I don’t think their [conference] is half as hard as ours,” he said. “I think I our [conference] will do very well in the playoffs.”

The final four teams from Northern and Southern California meet in the state tournament March 7-9 in San Jose.

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Powerful Pirates: The Orange Coast men’s basketball team has completed its most successful regular season in recent years.

The Pirates (18-13, 9-5) had their most victories in seven seasons and finished third in the Orange Empire Conference. It was their first winning record in conference since 1985 and the Pirates’ best conference finish since 1979.

Orange Coast is also in line for a first-round playoff game at home. The men’s playoffs also start Friday and Saturday.

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Baseball: The rest of the state’s baseball coaches are tired of hearing it, but the Orange Empire Conference continues to have many of the the top baseball teams.

All six Orange County teams are in the conference and Rancho Santiago (1993 and 1995) and Cypress (1991 and 1994) have combined to win four of the last five state titles.

There is no change this season as the conference’s teams have a combined 65-13 mark led by Orange Coast’s 12-0 start.

Rancho Santiago is 10-1, Riverside is 10-2, Cypress is 10-4, Fullerton is 9-1, Saddleback is 8-1 and Golden West is 6-4.

“I felt like we let the conference down by losing,” Rancho Santiago Coach Don Sneddon said last week.

The teams will try to work around the predicted rain this week to get ready for the 24-game conference schedule, which starts Saturday with Cypress at Golden West, Fullerton at Saddleback, and Riverside at Orange Coast, all at noon.

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Jennifer Nakanishi, a sophomore guard at Irvine Valley, has made an oral commitment to attend Cal Poly Pomona and play basketball next season.