Girls’ basketball: Cuyama Valley does the improbable

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Cuyama Valley didn’t exactly enter the Southern Section VI-A girls’ basketball playoffs with an impressive resume. In fact, it was barely a resume at all -- the Bears had played just nine games, finishing the regular season 5-4, and three of those wins were against a 5-13 Maricopa team.

When they drew an opening-round game against second-seeded Avalon, they appeared to be cannon fodder. But the Bears beat Avalon, 42-38, and followed that with a 58-15 hammering of Marywood-Palm Valley in the quarterfinals.

They completed an improbable journey with a pair of upset victories far from home this week, beating third-seeded Tarbut V’Torah, 55-53, in a semifinal Monday evening in San Juan Capistrano, and holding top-seeded Packinghouse Christian to their lowest offensive output of the season in a 38-33 Cuyama Valley victory Thursday for the Southern Section VI-A title at Mater Dei.

The latter two games were both held in Orange County, more than 170 miles from the northeast Santa Barbara County town of New Cuyama. That’s heady stuff for a team that never ventured further south than Santa Maria during the regular season.

--Eric Maddy