Owls Wrap Up Preseason Play In Home Openers

Citrus College Women's Basketball has been been on the road for a long, long time, and then some. The Fighting Owls, who wrapped up an epic 16 game road trip to start the 2017-18 season, finally sat on their home team bench this weekend as they hosted a quad crossover with visiting Moorpark, Santa Barbara and Antelope Valley. Citrus played Santa Barbara Friday night and fought their way to a narrow win, 68-64. Saturday would bring on Moorpark College, who came into the game with an impressive 13-4 record. The game would result in a lip biting overtime loss, 77-80. 

In Friday's win over Santa Barbara, Marisol Chavez-Delgado set the net on fire and dropped a cool 30 points on 14-22 shooting, swooped up 7 rebounds and picked off 4 steals for one of her finest career games. Also putting up excellent numbers was Freshman Jezteni Espinoza, who lit the Knights up for 18 points and distributed the ball 7 times to her teammates for baskets. Citrus, who came out with a vengeance in the first quarter and built lead of 24-8, was actually beat in almost every team stat in the game, but still managed to hold off Santa Barbara. Hitting clutch free throws late in the 4th quarter to cement the win were Lydia Sanchez and Espinoza. 

In Saturday's heartbreaking overtime loss to Moorpark, the Owls once again saw stellar play from Chavez-Delgado, whose double double (26 points, 12 rebounds) was her 4th of the year. Chavez-Delgado is currently ranked #7 in the state in field goal percentage. Court general and point guard Sanchez had a great performance as well as she scored 19 points and dished 4 assists for her highest scoring game of the season, and her career.

Citrus moves to 10-8 on the season as they go into conference play. The next stop for the Owls will be the conference opener against LA Valley this Saturday at home. Tipoff is scheduled for 3:00 PM. v