Girls’ Basketball Rebounds After Previous Season

KEVIN KONG
Sports Editor

Just a year from an 0-10 record and last place rank in Almont League, the varsity girls’ basketball team hits the courts once again in hopes of making strides through the rankings. The team concluded their preseason in early January with a preseason record of 6-10. The girls began this season with losses against the San Gabriel Matadors and the defending league champions, the Mark Keppel Aztecs, as well as a win against the Bell Garden Lancers to improve to 1-2.

“The difference between this team and last year’s is that we all understand the importance of being a team and we work well together […] to play smart,” captain Justina Sam said.

Third-year Head Coach Erik Williams has the Lady Moors practicing daily in order to prepare for the competition that awaits. According to Sam, a basic practice session includes stretching warm ups followed by drills that emphasize dribbling, passing, shooting and defensive fundamentals. The team also goes over plays in order to refine them for real games.

“I believe we have improved on our ability to work harder on the court,” senior point guard Kiyomi Takemoto said, “[and] a big strength of the team this year is that we definitely have potential when we are able to work […] together. We can muster up enough confidence to set the tone of [each] game.”

Improvements of the team also include their ability to play aggressively and as a unit, which several players have noted affected their performance on the court. Unlike the previous year, the team has a greater mixture of athletes from multiple grades with a total of six seniors and seven underclassmen. In turn, this allows the team to have a solid foundation for next year in terms of both skill and leadership. According to senior shooting guard Crystal Ho, the girls are being led as a more defensively minded team as opposed to offensively minded, but still is able to maintain a mix of players that have different abilities. As for the goals of the Lady Moors, they hope to qualify for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Preliminaries, address areas of weakness in order to improve their current record and expand on a solid foundation for next year’s team. The girls will continue throughout season with new changes and essentially new missions.

“Our team has talent and athletic ability, but our mental alertness and ability to play strategically falls short often. Strategy is not something a team can change overnight, or even game to game, so it would all depend on the williness of the team if we want change,” Ho said.