Oxnard holds off Vaqueros, 82-73

Oxnard outshot SBCC 54.2 to 41% in the second half on Wednesday night and beat the Vaqueros for the second time in eight days, 82-73, at the Sports Pavilion.

Drayten Howell hit 7-11 shots and led Santa Barbara with 17 points and four assists. Donald Grant added 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Ryan Smith and Aaron Mejia scored 10 apiece on Coaches vs. Cancer Night.

Christian Contreras had a huge night for Oxnard (5-11, 3-4), tossing in 20 points with five rebounds off the bench. He was 5-7 from the field, 3-3 on 3-pointers and 7-9 on free throws. Sean Coleman added 18 points and seven boards.

The Vaqueros held Jakari McClain, the state's leading scorer at 32.1 ppg, to a season-low eight points on 3-13 shooting

"We really played hard but our turnovers hurt us," said coach Morris Hodges, whose team had 15 turnovers leading to 19 points. "We missed a lot of layups early in the ballgame. We did a good job defensively against the state's top scorer. They had a couple of guys step up off the bench and we had some breakdowns on defense."

The Vaqueros trailed 37-31 at halftime, then pulled within one (41-40) on back-to-back layups by Howell and Francisco Gutierrez. Steve Kemp hit two straight layups to ignite a 15-2 Condor run that stretched the lead to 14 at 56-42.

The Vaqueros shaved the deficit to seven points (63-56) with 6:38 to go before the visitors went on an 8-1 burst and boosted the lead back to 14 (71-57) on a free-throw line jumper and two free throws by Contreras.

SBCC will play at Hancock on Saturday at 5 p.m.