Girls basketball shares league title with Del Norte, Oceanside
By Bill Tamburrino
There is something about Senior Night. Two weeks ago the Bulldog wrestling team ensured a Valley League championship on Senior Night and last week the Ramona High girls basketball team ensured a share of the Valley League championship during its Senior Night by beating Orange Glen 53-37 in the Dawg House.
The Lady Dawgs jumped out to an 8-0 lead and never looked back as they cruised to the seventh league championship in coach Dan Marshall’s 16 years as a girls basketball coach.
Orange Glen (8-15, 3-7) played a zone defense as it tried to take away Ramona’s inside game. That left Christina Barrameda and senior Niki Spring free from beyond the 3-point arch and the duo took advantage of the open shots. Spring sunk four 3-point shots and Barrameda hit two. Spring finished with 14 points and Barrameda scored 8 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
When the Patriots came out to defend against the long-range shots, Katherine Mauldin and Kailey Hill made them pay. Mauldin scored 18 points with eight rebounds and Hill tallied 7 points, grabbed nine boards, and blocked three shots. Senior Julie Ward rounded out the scoring with 6 points as she played her usual aggressive defense and hit the boards for nine rebounds and led the team with six assists.
When Mauldin got in early foul trouble senior Hannah Seits came off the bench and made her presence felt in the paint. Seits grabbed two rebounds and blocked a shot in her first game on the season after missing the majority of the season as she rehabilitated a knee injury she suffered during the summer. Seits had surgery and remained on the team.
“Hannah never missed a practice or a game. She earned the honor of being our captain before she got hurt and she retained that job and did an excellent job as a team leader. There is no way that I imagined that she would make it back before the season ended but she worked hard and got cleared by her doctor. She tore her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and MCL (medial collateral ligament) and fractured her patella and still made it back. I am proud of her and happy that she got to play and contribute in her senior year,” said Marshall.
Del Norte High School (16-11, 8-2) denied Ramona the outright Valley League title by beating Ramona 52-42 on the road.
Ramona got off to a horrible start and trailed 16-2 in the first period. The Lady Dawgs battled back and tied the game in the third period but Del Norte took the lead right back as the two teams battled for every point and rebound. Ramona got to within 1 point early in the fourth period but the Nighthawks held on for the victory.
Hill and Mauldin both registered double-doubles in the game. Hill scored 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Mauldin scored 12 points and had 12 boards. Barrameda also grabbed 12 rebounds and scored 4 points. Ward (8) and Spring (4) also scored for the Bulldog girls.
“Give Del Norte credit. They beat us and Oceanside in the last week of the season to earn a share of the league title. I am proud of the way our girls battled back after trailing 18-4. We then had a 13-3 run in the second quarter and we battled all of the way,” said Marshall after the game.
The Valley League was a very evenly balanced league in girls basketball. Oceanside, Del Norte, and Ramona all had 8-2 records in league to share the championship title and all beat each other at home and lost on the road. Ramona finished the regular season with an 18-10 record. All three teams advance to the CIF playoffs.