Santa Rosa leads from start to finish over Paloma, 61-34

Marcus McCray (center) and Dylan Steenhoek (33) of Santa Rosa Academy block Paloma Valley's Jalen Pope's path to the basket. 

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Santa Rosa Academy used an aggressive defense and an opportunistic offense to dominate throughout the game and defeat host Paloma Valley 61-34 in boys basketball action Wednesday night.

Senior guard Max Steward led a balanced scoring attack with 17 points – 14 in the first half, in which the Rangers jumped out to a 33-15 lead at the intermission. Junior guard Dylan Sapong (right) had 11 points, senior forward Marcus McCray scored 10 and four other players scored for Santa Rosa, which improved its season record to 9-5.

The victory over a much larger school was a big step in the Rangers’ efforts to prove the Menifee charter school can play at a higher level.

“This is probably the most competitive team we’ve had at Santa Rosa,” said Gabriel Flores, in his fifth year as the team’s coach. “I purposely put this game on the schedule to test and see where we’re at. Are we a team that can compete with the Palomas? We’ve got a bunch of big schools on our schedule, and we’ve got to know where we’re at.

“We could’ve put teams like this on the schedule in years past, but I don’t know what we would get out of it. We need to find out now. We had a second-round playoff loss to Nordhoff [last spring]. It took us three quarters to figure out what to do, and by the fourth quarter we kind of ran out of gas. We’re trying to improve on that second-round loss last year. We’re taking small steps toward it.”

Santa Rosa, with an enrollment of about 1,500 students, has less than half the student population Paloma Valley has to choose from for student-athletes. The Rangers have had successful seasons in the past – 14-8 in the 2017-18 season, 17-9 in 2019-20, and 6-1 in a short 2021 spring season – but the competition has been mostly smaller charter schools. This year, Flores said, it’s time to put his team to the test.

Paloma Valley, which came into the game with a 4-5 record, played the Rangers close for most of the first quarter, although Santa Rosa led from the moment Steward sank an outside jumper for a 3-0 lead. He had 10 points in that period alone. The Rangers started to pull away in the second quarter, taking advantage of numerous Paloma Valley turnovers and blocking Wildcat shots.

Three of the Wildcats’ final four possessions of the second quarter resulted in turnovers left them with an 18-point halftime deficit. Then, when the third quarter began, Paloma Valley’s possessions began with a turnover, a blocked shot and another turnover. By the time Sapong drove for a layup following two more Wildcat turnovers later in the period, Santa Rosa had a 20-point lead (39-19).

It was all Santa Rosa from that point on, as the Rangers continued to capitalize on Paloma Valley mistakes and create offensive opportunities.

“We have to,” Flores said. “Against bigger schools, they’ve got more kids, a bigger pool to choose from, and we have to work with what we’ve got. Being a charter school, it’s kind of tough. But we have a tough starting five. They’re an experienced unit. They’re battle tested.”

Next up, the Rangers play Tuesday at noon at Liberty, which is fielding a JV team in its first season. In the coming weeks, their schedule includes games against bigger public schools such as Lakeside and Canyon Springs.

Paloma Valley was led in scoring by senior forward Jalen Pope with 11 points. The Wildcats resume play Thursday at 4 p.m. at Corona.

Marcus McCray drives against the defense of David Welcome and Caden Eveld (0).

 Paloma Valley's Caden Eveld shoots against the defense of Dylan Steenhoek and Marcus McCray (24).

 Jalen Pope of the Wildcats makes a layup in the first quarter of Wednesday night's game.

 

David Welcome of Paloma Valley drives against the defense of Santa Rosa's Max Steward.