Sports

The Santa Cruz Warriors ended their six-game home stand on a high note, beating the Maine Red Claws 111-98 in front of another sold-out home crowd at Kaiser Permanente Arena.

Sayers unexpectedly tumbled to the dirt while running out a foul ball, but quickly rose to her feet, dusted herself off and started the Mariners’ game-sealing push with an RBI triple in the seventh inning of Thursday evening’s 7-3 Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League win over host St. Francis High.

Watsonville’s Layla Ruiz won the 400-, 1,600- and 3,200-meters in the Wildcatz’s Monterey Bay League Pacific division dual meet win over Gilroy on Thursday.

Aptos received the No. 5 seed in the CCS Open Division III playoffs, and will travel to No. 4 Terra Nova on Friday for a rematch of last year’s quarterfinals matchup.

The Aptos girls’ and boys’ basketball teams will hit the road on Tuesday for the first round of the California Interscholastic Federation NorCal playoffs.

The Mariners are not out of it yet but they are definitely in a hole for the rest of the league season after the 25-20, 25-18, 18-25, 25-19 loss to the loaded Knights. The loss not only dropped the four-time defending SCCAL champs into second place in the league standings but also dashed an impressive 30-match win streak against league opponents in the regular season, which dated back to 2015.

Over the last three seasons, Reyes has rewritten the Mariners’ record book. Last fall, he tied Mike Allshouse’s single-game rushing record with a 292 yard performance against Monte Vista Christian, and this season he’s eclipsed Allshouse’s career rushing record (2,082 yards) from the early ‘90s and Brooks Nicholson’s career points record (200 points) from five years ago.

Aptos senior Isaiah Ackerman and Santa Cruz junior DeMarco Hunter were named the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League’s co-Most Valuable Players for the 2024-25 boys’ basketball season. According to statistics on the Max Preps website, Ackerman had an average of 20.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and...