Tisha Duran is heading back to her old stomping grounds.
The Buena High graduate has been hired to coach her alma mater's softball team. Duran was an all-Channel League player at Buena before heading to Ventura College, where she was an all-WSC standout. Duran finished her softball career at UC Santa Barbara, where she earned all-Big West Conference honors.
Duran has been serving as an assistant coach at Ventura College for the last few years and giving private lessons.
"We had three great candidates, and Tisha really stood out," Buena athletic director Craig Williams said. "We are glad to have Tisha as our coach. She has so much passion."

The Ventura High boys basketball team defeated crosstown rival Buena 63-48 Friday night behind 15 points and eight rebounds from guard Dylan Houck, who was energized by the capacity crowd at Ventura College:

"How could you not want to play hard in this kind of atmosphere?"

"Playing two games against Buena here is the highlight to our season. We're glad to finally get this first one behind us."

The Channel League Swimming Finals have been moved from San Marcos High to Ventura College because of the Jesusita Fire.
The meet is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m., but could be delayed if the athletes from the Santa Barbara area have transportation issues.

It's now official.

Ventura's victory over San Marcos last night means Ventura and Buena will share the Channel League girls' basketball title with 7-1 league records.

Buena had already clinched a share with its victory over Ventura on Monday night

The rivals met four times this season and split the series 2-2. Buena beat Ventura on its home floor for its two wins while Ventura beat Buena at Buena and at Santa Barbara High in the Tournament of Champions.

To show just how tightly matched The Star's top two teams are, the cumulative score of their games added up to a 171-171 tie.

During their Monday night game at least nine college scouts were in attendance, including USC, Pepperdine, Northern Colorado, Cal State Stanislaus, Cal State Monterey Bay and of course Ventura College.

It was funny to see the scouts lingering outside the locker room making sure the players saw their institution names on their jackets/sweatshirts/polos. They can't talk to the players, but they did talk to the coaches.

The scouts were highest on Buena sophomore point guard Keani Albanez, who put on a show in the second half. Ventura junior Maddie Fahan is also on the radar

Buena senior Holly Holcomb hasn't received as much attention as Buena head coach Dave Guenther expected. But he said that has started to change in the last few weeks with more phone calls being made to his office and cell phone.

Just goes to show when you are one of the only games on the schedule in So Cal and have good players to watch, scouts will come.

The Cal State Stanislaus coach drove five hours down, watched the game and drove five hours back to Turlock.

****
Short shot:

- Thousand Oaks scored a big win and ended Newbury Park's hopes of an undefeated Marmonte League record with an overtime victory over the Panthers at Newbury Park High on Tuesday night. The Lancers are getting stronger as the season goes on, led by sophomore Karina Alofaituli and junior Jenna Bandy.