Sports

APTOS—Aptos High senior Dante Aranda, whose moniker on the football field is “The Bus”, is known for delivering big hits and going full speed whenever the ball is in his hand.     The 5 foot, 10 inch, 235-pound fullback/nose guard was all over the field for...

The Aptos football team was on the ropes throughout the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Central Coast Section Open Division III championship game. But whenever the Mariners needed a play — big or small — someone answered.

Despite having one of the best female ballers in the state, sophomore point guard Heleyna Hill, on the roster, the Cabrillo College women’s basketball team has demonstrated that it is not invincible.

Capitola-Soquel All-Star pitcher Dylan Hull recorded a complete game shutout on Saturday in a 7-0 win against the Aptos Little League All-Stars in the District 39 11s championship at Franich Park.

Aptos, ranked 35th in the state by maxpreps.com as of Thursday afternoon, isn’t the only team around the area that is determined to accomplish some history this winter.

Alex Austen, a senior offensive lineman for the Aptos High football team, stands at a towering 6-foot-5-inches and 311 pounds. Standing next to his fellow lineman, the starting left tackle makes them all look like members of the freshman squad. Six-foot-2, 283-pound senior tackle Joseph Gutierrez-Lee might as well be 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds.

Soquel erased a double-digit first half deficit to snap Aptos’ 26-game regular season win streak against Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League opponents with a stunning 52-42 upset on Friday night.

The Seahawks began the season with a 31-7 thumping of Contra Costa College in non-conference play.

Stephen Curry, Quinn Cook and DeMarcus Cousins brought the rain with them. With that trio of Golden State Warriors watching courtside, the Santa Cruz Warriors put on a shooting clinic to cruise to a 123-104 victory over the Stockton Kings in their home opener Wednesday night at Kaiser Permanente Arena.

The former head coach and general manager of the four-time Arena Football League-champion San Jose SaberCats, Arbet didn’t promise to break his foot off in his player’s “John Brown hind parts,” as Denzel Washington so eloquently said while playing Boone in the 2000 football flick. But the Seahawks’ heavyweight offseason hire does expect his players to be as close to perfect as possible.