Santa Clarita Sports Report, March 16, 2017. This is your place for Santa Clarita’s 2016/17 Foothill League spring sports. Find all the latest news and updates on your hometown schools here as they compete in the Foothill League, Heritage League, Western State Conference and GSAC.

CIF Division II State Girls Basketball Championships

Congratulations on a great season to the CIF-SS Division 1AA champion Valencia Vikings, who had their season ended Tuesday night in the Regional Semifinals by Mater Dei, 53-45.

Kayla Konrad struggled from the field (3-for-9 shooting for eight points and 13 boards) thanks to some suffocating defense from the Monarchs, and Kenadee Honaker kept the Vikings in the game with four triples, but the Vikes came up short.

Valencia finishes with a 29-6 record.

Santa Clarita High School Baseball

Foothill League scores:

Hart 3

Valencia 4

Cody Jefferis gave Hart a 3-1 lead with a 2-run single in the fifth inning, but Valencia stormed back with a dramatic bottom of the seventh rally. Chris Mueller capped the comeback with a walk-off single.

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Saugus 11

Canyon 8

Austin Scott went 2-for-5 with a double and three RBI in a wild game at Canyon that saw each team score eight runs in a single inning. The Cowboys moved to the bottom of the fifth inning down 3-0, but emerged with an 8-3 lead thanks in part to a 2-run double by sophomore Jacob Arguellez. However, the Centurions stormed back with a massive seventh inning to silence the ‘Boys for good.

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West Ranch 13

Golden Valley 3

The Wildcats were firing on all cylinders offensively, pummeling the Grizzlies for nineteen hits. Senior Timmy Josten picked up his first league win of the season and fanned nine GV batters.

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Heritage League schedule (first pitch at 3:15):

Santa Clarita Christian (2-2) vs Frazier Mountain

Santa Clarita High School Softball

Thursday’s schedule:

Valencia (7-4) vs Oxnard

Wilson vs Golden Valley (5-4)

Albert Einstein Academy (0-6) vs Trinity Classical Academy (2-0)

TMU Basketball

The 5-seeded Lady Mustangs are moving on to the second round in the NAIA Women’s Basketball National Championship after edging Our Lady of the Lake, 85-83 on Wednesday. Senior Bianca Cubello posted career highs with 28 points and 19 rebounds in the win.

The Mustangs reward? Undefeated and top-seeded Freed-Hardeman on Friday at 2:15.

The men’s basketball team embarks on its NAIA Tournament run this evening against Benedictine. TMU is a 2-seed in the Liston Bracket. Tip-off is at 7:30.

COC Athletics

The Cougars baseball team is going for its fourth straight win (and fourth straight game with double-digit runs) today in a conference game at Citrus. First pitch is at 2:30.

Cougars Softball is riding an eight-game unbeaten streak after sweeping Victor Valley on Tuesday. The Lady Cougars head to Antelope Valley for a game today before a back-to-back Saturday against Riverside. First pitch is at 2:30.

Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers have made the decision to shut down veteran 2016 free agent signings’ Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov for the remainder of the season. It’s important that head coach Luke Walton is able to play his young players more minutes and focus on developing the core of the team.

It’s also important the Lakers keep losing in order to provide the best possible odds of retaining their top-3 protected 2017 draft pick (owned by the Philadelphia 76ers). Currently, Los Angeles has the second worst record in the NBA, giving it the second-most ping pong balls in the May lottery.

So far, so good on the losing part. Developing the team? That looks pretty rough when compared to the top of the Western Conference. Wednesday night in Houston delivered another embarrassing loss for the Lakers, thanks to former Laker Lou Williams. Williams scored a game-high 30 points in handing LA a 139-100 loss, the second straight 39-point loss for the Lakers in Houston this season.

That’s right, the Houston Rockets have outscored the Los Angeles Lakers by a combined 78 points in Houston this season.

Oh, and Deng and Mozgov are the highest paid players on the Lakers roster; Deng is making $18,000,000 and Mozgov is getting $16,000,000.

KHTS AM-1220 is your place for the 2016/17 spring sports season and the Santa Clarita sports report. If you have any news and notes about our teams to share please send them to [email protected] and follow us @KHTSSports on Twitter.