Cuesta College sophomore Makani Nabaroo hit three home runs against Ventura College while the baseball team gets ready to finish off its season and make a playoff push. Meanwhile, Zayne Ellison won the Western State Conference Preliminaries title for Cuesta track and field. Men’s swimmer Grant Huston and Softball player Cierra Cloud had great months, both winning the women’s and men’s Cuesta Athlete of the Month awards. Beach volleyball is set to play in the WSC pairs tournament. Softball finished up the regular season.
Track and Field
The Cuesta Cougars had several standout performances at the Western Conference Preliminaries. Freshman Zayne Ellison highlighted the Cougars’ performance with a conference championship win in the long jump. Sophomore Anthony Frere added two podium finishes in the 800 and 1500 meters, while for the women’s team, freshman Kennedy McAdoo led with a runner-up finish in the 400 meters. The Cuesta track and field team will prepare for the Western State Conference Finals on Friday.
Baseball (20-17)
Cuesta baseball just finished its last regular-season home game against its rival, Allan Hancock College. The game didn’t go the Cougars’ way after they got out to a slow start with a pair of home runs from Hancock to make the score 2-0 early. Not long after that, the Cougars started to come back, but it wasn’t enough for the victory, falling 12-6.
The Cougars won over Ventura earlier in the week. Cuesta sophomore Makani Nabaroo hit three home runs with five RBIs against Ventura to help them capture a late regular-season win. In the fourth inning, Cuesta’s Jak Sinclair and Hank Hansen were both issued free bases from a walk for Pinch Hitter Gavin Colombo. Colombo came through with a walk-off single to score the deciding run, 10-9. The win keeps the Cougars in the playoff hunt with a 20-17 overall record. The Cougars will finish the regular season on the road next week. The Cougars will travel to Woodland Hills to face LA Pierce on Tuesday, then complete the regular season at Moorpark on Thursday.
Swim and Dive
The men’s diving team is chasing its sixth straight WSC Crown as well as its 21st conference title since 1980. The men’s team entered the weekend’s meet chasing rival Ventura, after last week’s 3C2A Regional Diving Meet, but Cuesta’s Haiden Coulter and Cohen Swanson scored enough points to earn all-WSC honors and keep the Cougars in the hunt. The men have won five of their seven events this season, while also earning a Team Silver at the Mt SAC Invitational and a Bronze at the NorCal Invitational. Grant Huston of the Men’s dive team won Cuesta Athlete of the Month. The Cougars will now be preparing for the 3C2A State Championships on April 30.
Beach Volleyball (5-17)
Cuesta Beach Volleyball closed off its team schedule with setbacks in Moorpark on Friday. The Cougars were swept 5-0 by both the host Moorpark and WSC-leading Santa Barbara City. The loss dropped the Cougars’ record to 5-17 and landed them in 6th place. The Cougars are 78-126 in their individual matches this season and will have the opportunity to step outside of the dual-meet lineup and improve their standing as individual pairs. Cuesta sophomore Cayley Brown is now the Cougars career win leader with 18 wins over the past two seasons, while her former partner, Hanne Porter, is just one win shy of the Cougars’ single-season record of 11 wins. The pair has been separated in hopes of helping the Cougars advance two teams this weekend.
Softball (12-24)
Cuesta Softball is finishing its regular season with one game left at Santa Monica on Tuesday. The Cougars only had one game this week, losing 9-8 to Santa Barbara. Cuesta’s Female Athlete of the Month, Cierra Cloud, went 2-for-3 to help Cuesta. Cougars started off with an early 8-0 lead. In the fourth inning, Santa Barbara scored seven runs to make the score 8-7, Cuesta. The Cougars didn’t score a run for the rest of the game, but Santa Barbara scored two more in the bottom of the sixth, which helped them close out the win, 9-8.
