This past week, the Woodland Christian girls varsity basketball team won their 9th and 10th game in a row as they continued defeating the teams in front of them thanks to victories over Winters and San Juan by the scores of 41-31 and 63-6, respectively.

The Cardinals (12-5, 5-0 Sierra Delta League) began the week with a short non-league road trip to Winters High School.

“We had this game circled, knowing that they would give us a good game,” Cardinals coach Shiloh Sorbello said. “They had a great record and returned their key players. Ivan Dodic, the coach at Winters, always has his teams ready to play great defense. We beat them handily in the Cardinal Classic last season, but they turned around and beat us by 12 a couple of weeks later. That loss was a wake-up call for us and led to our 17-game winning streak and deep playoff run.”

Winters came into the game with a strong 10-2 record and a 3-1 record in the Sacramento Valley League. Their league victories included a 29-24 win over East Nicolaus, a 30-15 win over Paradise, and a 48-44 win over Durham.

The game began slowly as the Cardinals struggled to contain Winters’ post player Jordan Tucker, who finished with a game-high 20 points. Winters led 10-9 after the first quarter.

“While Tucker hurt us inside, we did an excellent job containing everyone else,” Sorbello recalled. “No other Winters player had more than one field goal.”

Teagan Hayes led the Cardinal’s efforts defensively at the top of their zone while guards Ellie Sumner, Elena Ganyo and Keziah Maldonado-Lemus effectively stopped dribble penetration and contested outside shots.

Ganyo had 8 defensive rebounds, while Hayes scored 19 points on offense.

On Friday, the Cardinals resumed league play when they hosted San Juan (0-11, 0-5 SDL).

With the outcome of the game fairly certain to both teams going in, the Cardinals used the night as a way to get everyone some solid minutes ahead of the home stretch and playoff run.

Maldonado-Lemus had a near triple-double with 17 points on an efficient 10 shots, 8 assists and 8 steals. Hayes had 13 points and 5 steals. Sophomore Bailee Broward’s double-digit rebounding streak ended, but she still managed to pull down a team-high 9 rebounds to go with a career-high 7 assists.

Fellow Sophomore Siena Sorbello was solid, scoring 10 points and blocking 4 shots, including a chase-down block that reminded everyone in attendance of Hayes’s trademark blocks.

Freshman Tyler Johns had a career-high 6 points in the win, all in the first half. Sumner and Ganyo combined for 9 points on just six shots, helping the Cardinals to an excellent adjusted field goal percentage of 60% for the game.

Up next for the Cardinals will be a busy week with three games on the slate, including road league matchups against Rio Vista and Mesa Verde on Tuesday and Thursday, sandwiching a non-league home game against the crosstown rival Woodland High School on Wednesday.

“We are looking forward to tougher competition next week, starting with a good league game on the road,” Sorbello said. “Our opponent Tuesday is Rio Vista, who was 12-0 in the league last year en route to the league title, so we are looking forward to putting our 10-game winning streak on the line and seeing how we stack up as the league newcomer.”