Simi Valley Caps Grueling Stretch

Coach Christian Aurand and his Simi Valley High team were catching their collective breath after concluding a five-games-in-eight-days stretch with a 76-69 victory over visiting Newbury Park in a Marmonte League game Wednesday night.

The Pioneers (14-4, 3-1 in league play) snapped a two-game losing streak, giving them a 3-2 record over the eight days. It also gave the two-time defending league champions a half-game lead entering tonight’s league games between Agoura and Royal, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks, and Westlake and Newbury Park.

Simi Valley’s next game is Monday against visiting Agoura.

“We were certainly testing our gas tanks,” Aurand said of the Pioneers’ arduous schedule. “It was a real test for our guys, but I thought they did a good job. They were tired [on Wednesday], but they got a big win against Newbury Park.”

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Simi Valley and Agoura could be tied for first when they meet Monday, but neither Aurand nor Coach Joe Riccio of Agoura can explain why their teams are playing each other for the second time in eight days.

Teams usually are matched once during the first round of league play and once during the second round, but Simi Valley and Agoura will meet twice in their first five league games.

“I have no idea why,” Riccio said. “When I was hired as coach here [last year], our schedule was already made.”

Aurand complained about the original Marmonte schedule because it had the Pioneers playing five consecutive road games to start league play, but he never asked to play Agoura twice so close together.

“I’d rather play Agoura later in the season,” he said.

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Ventura was outscored, 24-9, in the fourth quarter of a 54-49 loss to visiting San Marcos on Wednesday night, leaving Coach Dan Larson to wonder what went wrong.

“I can’t quite put my finger on it,” he said. “We had a lot of guys on the floor who had been in that situation before. I thought we had [the game] in the bag at the start of the fourth quarter, but we didn’t get it done.”

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The Hueneme-Channel Islands game that was postponed on Wednesday after a teenage gunman was fatally shot by a member of the Oxnard SWAT team while he held a female student hostage at Hueneme, has been rescheduled for Tuesday.

Tonight’s game between Hueneme and visiting Camarillo has also been postponed, although no new date has been set.