Santa Clara Falls to Santa Paula, at Ground Zero

If there was any doubt Santa Clara High has lost its stranglehold on Frontier League boys’ basketball it died Tuesday night with the Saints’ 48-47 loss to Santa Paula.

Santa Paula (18-4, 7-0 in league play) trailed, 47-43, with 6:24 left but pulled out the victory on a three-point shot by Willie Zavala with 6:02 remaining and a put-back basket by Mike Kolbeck for the final points three minutes later.

Santa Clara (8-11, 2-5) turned the ball over on its last two possessions with a shot-clock violation and when B.J. Ward was stripped of the ball with 40 seconds to play.

Joey Riccio of Santa Paula scored 18 points, 16 in the first half.

Ward scored 16 points, 14 in the first half, for Santa Clara and Ryan McGill added 14.

It appears that for only the second time in the 40-year tenure of Santa Clara Coach Lou Cvijanovich, the Saints, 13-time defending league champions, will not make a playoff appearance. Santa Clara won the Southern Section Division V-AA title last season.

Santa Paula, which put the first dent in Santa Clara’s reputation by sharing the league title for the 1994-95 season, finished the job Tuesday and is closing in on its first league title in more than 25 years.

Seated in his office after the game, Cvijanovich had no trouble identifying his team’s season-long Achilles’ heel, which brought the Saints down again.

“We still can’t hit our free [throws],” Cvijanovich said. “We gave away another game.”

Santa Clara made five of 13 free throws. Before the game, Cvijanovich lamented his team’s inability to hit them.

“The tragedy of it is, we haven’t been blown out all season,” he said. “The games are there for the taking and we don’t want to get it, to go out and work for it.”

Adding to Cvijanovich’s frustration was the Saints’ inability to grab rebounds, particularly under their own basket.

Santa Paula held a 32-21 rebounding edge and scored 14 second-half points on offensive rebounds.

“The last few minutes we stunk on defense,” Cvijanovich said. “They got five rebounds in succession and we didn’t even contest them.”

Santa Paula Coach Tom Donahue, who has had clashes with Cvijanovich in the past, won at Santa Clara for the first time in seven seasons with the Cardinals but refused to gloat.

“Absolutely not,” Donahue said in answer to questions on whether he and his team would celebrate the victory. “We’ll be happy for five seconds and then I’ll be watching tape of Moorpark.”

Donahue said his choice to switch to a 2-3 zone down the stretch helped ensure Ward would not beat them with drives down the lane, as he did in the first half.

Santa Clara build leads of 10 points twice in the first half and held a 34-28 advantage at intermission.

Santa Paula was also aided by the absence of Santa Clara junior Nick Jones, an All-Ventura County player last season.

Jones, who broke his foot on the first day of practice, returned for the Saints’ past three games but is experiencing pain and might not play for the rest of the season.

Santa Paula beat Santa Clara, 65-61, last month.