Hancock downs cold-shooting Vaqueros, 75-61

Hancock put together a 16-0 run midway through the first half on Saturday night and went on to hand SBCC a 75-61 men's basketball setback in a WSC North contest at the Sports Pavilion.

It was the first home appearance by the Vaqueros (1-14, 0-2) in nine weeks and just their second home game of the season. Glenn Jordan hit 4-5 from 3-point land and topped the Bulldogs (14-8, 1-1) with 14 points. Shane Carney added 13 points and four assists.

The Bulldogs outshot Santa Barbara 50 to 33.3 percent in the opening half and led by as many as 18 before taking a 39-26 halftime advantage. For the game, Hancock shot 49.2 percent, including 9-21 on triples, and the Vaqueros hit 34.8 percent and were 8-21 from long range.

Freshman left-hander Aaron Mejia scored 13 of his 15 points in the second half for SBCC.  He was 6-12 from the field for the game and 3-5 on 3's in the final 20 minutes. Drayten Howell produced 13 points, three rebounds and four assists.

"We struggled with our shooting, we were 10-for-30 in the first half," noted SBCC coach Morris Hodges. "We've struggled to score since we lost our leading scorer and rebounder (four games ago). We had a lot of careless turnovers in the first half.

"We played hard and we competed but we had some poor execution at times. We got out of sorts with a little too much 1-on-1. Our Achilles' heel is our shooting."

Hancock dominated the backboards, 53-32, with John Riddick grabbing seven. Donald Grant led the Vaqueros with seven rebounds.

The Bulldogs took their biggest lead at 71-43 on a 3-pointer by Diego Lucas with 5:32 to play. The Vaqueros outscored their county rival 18-4 the rest of the way with Mejia tossing in eight points.

SBCC travels to Moorpark on Wednesday with tip-off at 7 p.m.