Author: KEYT

Mike Klan

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) – Hamad Mousa finished with a game high 29 points and Cayden Ward matched his career best with 28 Thursday evening as the Cal Poly men’s basketball program clinched a spot in the 2026 Big West Championship with a 102-92 victory against Long Beach State inside Mott Athletics Center.

Freshman Jess Esso Essis enjoyed a career high 15 points for Cal Poly (13-16, 9-8), which extended its winning streak to four straight after sinking 13 three-pointers, shooting 95.5 (21-for-22) percent from the free throw line and recording its highest regulation point total since a 102-89 victory at Hawai’i on Feb. 20, 2010.

Ward added a game high nine rebounds for Cal Poly, which matched a season low with just eight turnovers.

Cal Poly’s Thursday victory confirmed all eight Big West Championship programs – with three regular season matchups remaining. Long Beach State (8-21, 4-13) was eliminated from postseason contention with the loss.

Thursday’s matchup featured 10 lead changes during the opening 10-and-a-half minutes before a jumper from sophomore Guzman Vasilic handed Cal Poly a 29-27 edge. Cal Poly then produced a 15-7 run to go up by double digits with three minutes remaining in the half.

The Mustangs took a 48-40 lead into the break before a jumper and three-pointer from Long Beach State guard Shaquil Bender to open the second half cut Cal Poly’s advantage to three.

Cal Poly, however, scored on four of its next five possessions to reestablish a double-digit lead for the remainder of the night.

Notes:

Despite a four-game win streak, Cal Poly remained in eighth place in the Big West standings – but just three games behind co-leaders UC Irvine and Hawai’i.

Up Next: Cal Poly visits UC San Diego on Saturday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. The Tritons, sharing fifth place alongside Cal State Fullerton, reside just one game ahead of Cal Poly.

With 29 points Thursday, Hamad Mousa improved his season point total to 574 – the fourth highest single season total in program history.

Cal Poly’s nine Big West victories are the program’s highest total since finishing 12-6 to close the 2012-13 season.

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Mike Klan

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KEYT) – Zoe Borter snapped a 54-54 tie with a basket in the lane and UCSB went on for a 61-57 victory to move to 11-7 in the Big West.

Leading 56-55, Maddie Naro drilled a three-pointer with just :18 seconds left for UCSB. Naro finished with 12 points.

Skylar Burke led the Gauchos with 15 points and 12 rebounds and Olivia Bradley added 14 points

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Mike Klan

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) – A quartet of Southern California pitchers combined on a five-hit shutout as the Trojans opened a four-game non-conference baseball series at Baggett Stadium with a 4-0 victory over Cal Poly on Thursday night.

On an unusually warm winter night with temperatures in the low 70s, USC tallied a pair of runs in the third inning and added single markers in the fifth and seventh frames to maintain its perfect record on the young season, now 8-0. Cal Poly suffered its third straight loss following a 4-1 start, evening its mark at 4-4.

Making his second start of the year, Chase Herrell (1-0) pitched five scoreless innings for the victory, allowing a pair of hits and two walks while striking out five. Gavin Lauridsen (1 2/3 innings), Sax Matson (one inning) and Adam Troy (1 1/3 innings) completed the shutout.

Mustang freshman right-hander Corden Pettey (1-1) struck out seven Trojans over four innings, but allowed two runs in the third frame on a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly in absorbing the loss. Chris Downs allowed the runs in the fifth and seventh during his three-inning stint on the mound while Brady Estes and Luke Kalfsbeek each tossed one scoreless frame.

Cal Poly produced several scoring opportunities, but stranded 10 runners on the basepaths.

Casey Murray Jr. doubled with one out in the second inning. Murray also drew a leadoff walk in the fifth and Ryan Tayman followed with a single to shallow left field. Both advanced 90 feet on a grounder for the first out, but a strikeout and fly ball to the outfield ended the threat.

Dante Vachini opened the sixth with a single to left, but three straight line drive outs dashed that rally. Cal Poly loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh but Matson came out of the bullpen to notch the first of his two strikeouts, ending the uprising.

Alejandro Garza singled with one out in the eighth, extending his season-opening hitting streak to eight games, and two Mustangs reached base in the ninth on walks before USC closed out the shutout with a popup to shortstop.

Cal Poly’s five hits were scattered among five players. USC collected seven hits, including a single and triple by Abbrie Covarrubias and another triple by Kevin Takeuchi.

Prior to the start of the series opener, Robin Baggett, the namesake of the stadium Cal Poly has called home for 25 years, threw the ceremonial first pitch.

Second game of the weekend series will be played Friday night at 6:05 with Cal Poly junior right-hander Griffin Naess (1-1, 1.50 ERA), coming off a 14-strikeout performance over seven scoreless innings against Washington State last week, facing USC junior southpaw Mason Edwards (2-0, 0.00 ERA).

The series continues Saturday at 3:05 p.m. and wraps up Sunday at 1:05 p.m.

(Article courtesy of Cal Poly Athletics)

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Mike Klan

UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – Aidan Mahaney scored a game-high 21 points and Zion Sensley added 19 points plus a game-high 12 rebounds as UCSB held off UC Riverside 70-59.

(Aidan Mahaney finished each half off with a flurry of points. Entenza Design).

UCSB snaps a 3-game losing streak as they improve to 11-7 in the Big West.

At halftime UCSB made former NBA player Orlando Johnson the latest “Legend of the Dome.”

(He is the Gauchos all-time leading scorer despite playing just three seasons at UCSB. Entenza Design).

Johnson is now an assistant coach at Washington State.

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Mike Klan

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. (KEYT) – USC-bound senior Charlotte Raisin scored a game-high 6 goals to lead San Marcos past #1 seed Oaks Christian 11-10 in a CIF Division 1 SoCal Regional semifinal.

The #5 seed Royals will play #2 Mater Dei for the SoCal Girls Water Polo Division 1 Championship on Saturday at Long Beach City College at 2 p.m. The Monarchs edged Newport Harbor 9-7 in the other semifinal.

San Marcos built up a 7-3 lead over the home Lions at halftime behind four first half goals from Raisin.

Oaks Christian scored 4 unanswered goals in the third quarter to tie it at 7 before the Royals closed the quarter with 2 more goals from Raisin to lead 9-7.

Lions star and Stanford-bound Mia Fabros scored from outside to cut the deficit to 9-8 with 5:14 remaining.

Next possession the Royals went back up by two goals as junior Lily Bordofsky had a beautiful outside shot that snuck in the near post and it was 10-8 Royals with 4:49 to play. Bordofsky had 2 goals in the game.

Maryam Maamoun scored with 3:11 left and Lyra Gavazzi tied it at 10 with 2:35 remaining.

The Royals came down the pool and grabbed the lead right back. Michigan-bound senior Sophie Yonker took a pass from Shea Estabrook and Yonker delivered what proved to be the game-winning goal with 2:02 left on the clock. Yonker finished with 2 goals.

The Lions had a chance to tie in the closing seconds but could not convert a 6-on-5 advantage as their shot sailed wide over the goal. Royals goalkeeper Bethany King, a Harvard-commit, had 9 blocks in the game.

Oaks Christian ends their season at 22-7 and back-to-back CIF-Southern Section Open Division champions.

The Royals improve to 28-7 and win or lose on Saturday, the game marks the final one for Chuckie Roth as head coach of the girls program.

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John Palminteri

MONTECITO, Calif. (KEYT) – One of the biggest fundraisers of the year will help our first responders in September, and this year it will be twice as big.

 At the Montecito Club Wednesday night the One805Live! event has been announced as a two-day event.

It will be held September 25th and 26th on the coastal property of actor Kevin Costner near the city of Carpinteria, where it was held last year.

The goal is to raise funds for wellness services for local first responders, along with additional emergency gear.

In the announcement last night at the Montecito Club, the need for mental health care is ongoing and vital.

Santa Barbara City Fire Chief Chris Mailes said, “most people go their whole lives without seeing some of the things that first responders have seen. Look at the different studies anywhere between two and 500 incidents will affect a first responder in a life altering way.”

The goal for ONE805 is a $10 million fund for the services needed throughout Santa Barbara County for fire, police and sheriff’s personnel.

This year’s shows will include two rock and roll legends. Pat Benatar with her husband Neil Giraldo will appear in one show with songs including “Love is a Battlefield” and “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”

And appearing in the other show will be rock and blues icon George Thorogood with the hit song “Bad to the Bone.”

Many other musicians and special guests will be added in the coming weeks.

In recent years performers included Good Charlotte, John Fogerty, Maroon 5, Trisha Yearwood, Pink, Kenny Loggins, Elliot Easton, Alan Parsons, and Donavon Frankenreiter.

For ticket information go to : ONE805 Live!

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Jarrod Zinn

SOLVANG, Calif. (KEYT) – The city of Solvang is revamping its rules for short-term rentals.

The city is emphasizing the need for long-term housing to stay that way.

City leaders say the current ordinance is twelve years old, and simply needs to be updated to present-day standards.

The prevalence of vacation rental apps like AirB&B has seen a dramatic increase over the last decade.

“Makes it a lot easier for people to visit, not only Solvang, but the Santa Ynez Valley,” says Rafael Castillo, Solvang’s Planning Manager. “Yet at the same time as many of our municipalities, including our own, is facing a housing crisis. So really, what it comes down to is ensuring that vacation rentals stay in the location that they’re, allotted to be in, which is here in the village.”

Solvang city leaders say they have been alerted to some long-term homes in residential neighborhoods utilizing their properties for short-term vacation rentals.

“In the Santa Ynez Valley and particularly here at Solvang, we have property owners that do purchase property and we want to turn those into vacation rentals,” says Castillo. “And there have been some illegal vacation rentals that have popped up in our residential neighborhoods, which we have been informed of, previously.”

And that’s causing problems, specifically with street parking.

Solvang’s planning manager Rafael Castillo says, with housing needs being high at this time, they want to make sure long-term residences remain prioritized as such.

“We’re a tourist driven community, and it’s so far so good with our vacation rentals,” Castillo says. “But again, we did have a lot of nefarious actors out there, operating illegal rentals in our residential neighborhoods. And so we want, again, we want to make sure that with a new permitting process, that we do stay on top of that, and ensure that our residential neighborhoods do remain just that.”

Castillo says residents who want to rent their properties to vacationers will still have a pathway to do so, but the city is simply revamping the process.

“It’s a two way street. We also, acknowledge that there are property owners here in town that you know, they want to stay in town. And particularly for retirees and need additional income. And so, renting out a portion of their home may be available.”

The ordinances will be reviewed annually, creating a more flexible, hands-on approach to monitoring tourist activity.

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Dave Alley

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) – A pair of high-profile developments in the heart of downtown Santa Maria are beginning to take shape in their construction process.

At the site of the old Mervyn’s/Fallas building in the Santa Maria Town Center West shopping center, work at the future home of Heritage Lofts is about a third of the way through according to project developer Brett Vernon.

“I’m just really excited,” said Brett Vernon, The Vernon Group President. “We’ve been working on this thing for almost five years. It feels really good to see it, to see a building starting to take shape.”

In August, the Santa Barbara-based company broke ground on the project that will redevelop the old commercial building into a 104-unit residential complex.

“Right now, we’re currently framing in, roughing in, plumbing, electrical,” said Vernon. “Since it’s an adaptive reuse building, we’re able to work on multiple stories at the same time where that’s not typical in construction. We actually have the second floor further ahead than the first floor, which usually you’ve got to build from the ground up, so we’re ahead of ourselves in some areas and behind ourselves in other parts of the building. Things are going as planned. Typical little hiccups that we have in construction. Other than that everything’s on everything’s looking good. We’re on schedule. We’re looking forward to getting people in here and reactivating downtown.”

Vernon added he expects construction to last for about another year and for the first residents to move in as early as March 2027.

Across the street at the Santa Maria Town Center mall, construction is also taking place on new market and retail space inside the building that was the longtime former home of Sears building.

Work is now happening on both the inside and outside of the building, transforming the site into a new “El Super” market on the ground floor, with addition retail space planned for the second floor.

“There’s lots of construction activity going on,” said Chenin Dow, Santa Maria Community Development Director. “This is the Charles Company that’s building this project, and it really is gut and replace with what’s existing in the building, so there’s lots of changes that need to be made and lots of activity going on.”

Compared to the Heritage Lofts, which is being reshaped dramatically on the outside and now looks very different than it did just a few months ago, the new El Super building is currently seeing most of the work taking place on the inside.

Still, there is a quite a bit of work taking place indoors that will fill the long vacant building that’s been empty since 2020 with much-needed retail space

El Super provided News Channel 3-12 with an update on construction that will continue on for the next several months.

“We are excited to share that construction at our new El Super location is progressing on schedule. We look forward to opening our doors to the Santa Maria community later this year and can’t wait to bring our customers the fresh, quality products and authentic shopping experience El Super is known for. Stay tuned for more details on our grand opening!”

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John Palminteri

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – With a federal funding problem looming, Santa Barbara is urgently timing its next round of dredging at the Santa Barbara Harbor entrance.

The infill of sand is clogging the opening but it still has a path for vessels coming in and out, mainly at higher tides.

“We are in touch with the Army Corps of Engineers,” said Waterfront Director Mike Wiltshire at a recent meeting of the Santa Barbara Harbor Commission. “They are targeting in mid-March. That is really tight. It is something we are thinking about every day.”

The Harbor Patrol is checking every day to test depth and widths, especially after recent storms with wave action bringing in tons of sand.

“It is going to get narrow and dire for a week, potentially two weeks,” said Wiltshire. Then Pacific Dredge will be in Santa Barbara with the all-electric dredge the city uses.

He also said there is only one round of funding left in the budget. After that no more federal funding has been allocated. That then puts the burden of the $4-million cost on the local budget.

Another concern is the possibility of the harbor entrance getting shut off with another burst of sand especially if the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Blackfin is still docked.

There is also an active commercial fishing fleet in the harbor which serves local and other restaurants with its catch which includes urchin, halibut and rockfish.

Wiltshire said, “this is not normal conditions.”

For now he said, “We do have a light at the end of the tunnel.” That will come when the dredge arrives.

Thursday some people were fishing in areas where there’s normally less sand, but they were able to walk farther out on the sandspit. There was also a man with a metal detector checking exposed sandy areas looking for valuables.

Boats going in and out were very close in the area that can be used. The Harbor Patrol is available for an escort if needed.

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Mike Klan

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) –

Dos Pueblos 10, Oaks Christian 9 (OT): Austin Fauver scored in the final minute of regulation to tie the game at 9 and Dylan Wooten scored early in overtime to complete the comeback for the Chargers.

DP trailed the Lions 5-1 after the first quarter and 8-4 after the third quarter before staging a furious rally to win their first game on the year.

DP (1-2) was led on offense by Fauver who scored 4 goals. Wooten had 2 goals and 3 assists.

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