Page 9 - Sanger Herald 12-7-17 E-edition

SangerSports
SANGER HERALD * PAGE 1B * THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2017
Young Apache girls basketball team works to find 'that feeling'
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Last week and already two games into the season, Sanger High girls basketball coach David Campbell talked about what lies ahead for his Lady Apaches.
The team had just come off a couple losses.
Cu-Nisha Mitchell, one of three varsity returners who had a lot of court time last season, said they battled back and nearly took Hoover, outscoring the Patriots on Nov. 28 in the final quarter to get within three points. Mitchell had taken herself out of practice that day. She had rolled an ankle, then another.
“We’re just playing games right now,” Campbell said during a break after some intensive scrimmages at the Dean Nicholson Gym at Sanger High. “We’re young even though we’ve got some seniors.
“These girls want to play together. That’s the key.”
Campbell called up three freshmen to varsity, and all show promise and fierce
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Savannah Rocha pulls down a rebound against Shafter.
competitive spirit. They played alongside starters include Andrea Chapa, Stephanie Herring and Jacklyn Kulow and Taylor Savannah Rocha, now Roth. seniors, during last season’s
Mitchell, a junior, run to the California
Interscholastic Federation Central Section Division III championship in Selland Arena. The Apaches had knocked out arch rival and No. 1 playoff seed Mission Oak in the semi-final but lost by a single point to scrappy Madera, 26-27.
Slow starts are part of the process.
“Last year, we did the same thing,” Rocha said right after a tournament game at the 42nd Annual Selma Shootout on Nov. 30 at Lincoln Middle School. “We started off slow. Then we got the momentum. We have to get that feeling.
“Wecandoit,Iknowwe can. We have the skill. We have the smarts. We (just) need to slow down.”
Rocha was possibly talking about herself as well as her team. The syncing of the athletes ranked high on her to-do list as did reducing the number of turnovers and getting the ball to players best able to make the shot and be at the right place at the right time to get the rebound.
“They’ve just gotta play,” Campbell said. “Once they
get some experience and learn to trust each other. They’re getting better every game. I think we’ll be all right.”
While the girls did a series of fast-forward layup drills, Campbell made comments like “Make some plays,” “I like that, all right,” “Nice pass,” “Angles, angles, angles” and “Good.”
Campbell replaces David Garza in the head coaching position. It’s a role he’s had before, and he took up the reins as if he hadn’t taken a break. Scott Spielman returned as an assistant coach, joined by Mike Leas as another assistant. Garza took a job in management at Wilson Elementary.
Sanger lost again in its third outing Nov. 30 to Shafter in the Shootout, 62-44, and then again that night to Center of Antelope, 31-29.
Senior Maryann Jaramillo explained in the first game where the Apaches fell short. “We started off strong,” she said. And, indeed, the Apaches traded basket for basket with the motivated
Generals in the first quarter.
“But the middle,” Jaramillo said, leaving the statement there as if it explained itself. “We’ve got tobeawholeteam—the whole game. We can’t lack (intensity).”
Sanger scored just five points in the second quarter and nine in the third before picking up the pace and the defensive duties on Shafter’s inside game in the fourth.
“We need to make up for our mistakes,” said Annie Lopez, a junior. And a team can do that if it doubles down on defense, she said. But that night not so much. “On defense, we were getting killed on the fast break.
“But we need to stay positive and encourage each other to stay strong and keep pushing forward. Don’t look back on your mistakes.”
Senior Genesis Morales said, “There’s a lot we need to work on as a team. We’re just starting. We have very little chemistry at the
See Basketball, Page 2B
Ahwahnee court named for former Apache
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
The Apaches had lost — but not by much — in their last meeting with the Hanford Bullpups, and on this particular night Sanger wanted a win.
It was their turf. A home game. A junior that night stepped up, grabbing a dozen rebounds and scoring six points. His name was Joe Padilla. He wore No. 42 and played forward.
“We won,” said his teammate Mike Huerta. “We held Ray Bobo, who was averaging 14-15 points a game, to six points.”
The contest took place Feb. 7, 1980. Huerta dug through the bound copies of the Sanger Herald as he tried to find details on the games he played with Padilla. Huerta is the Herald's press manager.
There was a reason for this trip into yellowed newsprint. Padilla was honored several weeks back for his years coaching at Ahwahnee Middle School in Fresno. Over 30 years, Padilla, 54, taught history at the school. And he coached about 25 of those years.
He estimated he coached between 400 and 500 students.
That Apache, Joe Padilla class of 1981, never lost his love for the game of basketball. And because he retired the end of the last school year, his principal at Ahwahnee, Jose Guzman, came up with an idea to rename the court for Padilla.
Actually, the initial idea came via text from another Ahwahnee teacher, Richard Crowder. Guzman said Crowder sent him a photo of another court somewhere in the country. That school had painted the coach’s name on its court and refinished the hardwood.
“I worked all summer to get it done,” Guzman said. He also gave a shout out to
Submitted photo
Former basketball Apache Joe Padilla coached for years at Ahwahnee Middle School in Fresno, and his principal and staff decided to name the court in his honor. Padilla, also known as "Dragon" during his days at Sanger High, plays against Hanford, right.
the crews who did the work and Fresno Unified’s Amy Idsvoog, an administrative analyst in communications, for shepherding the project to completion.
And at the moment of truth, just before a game between Ahwahnee’s Mighty Warriors and St. Anthony’s, the referee introduced himself as a former player of coach Padilla’s. Fitting. Guzman said the naming ceremony went quickly, attended by students and staff.
Butitwasnolessabig deal. ABC30 sent a news crew. And it happened about the same time Sanger High named its main gym for longtime coach and math teacher Dean Nicholson. No news crew but the Sanger event drew a huge crowd and multiple bands played.
Padilla posed for photos. He said a picture his sister in law posted on Facebook generated a lot of response. “I probably made contact with 70 to 80 former students,” he said.
“It was great. It was fun,” Padilla said.
Padilla’s still teaching, but he said it’s more one on one. He’s working for a charter school.
During his time at Ahwahnee, he corrected countless piles of homework, counseled those who needed to improve their grades and congratulated them as they moved onto the next grade. And he did it in room E5. In all that time, he kept the same classroom.
For his efforts as a teacher, Padilla got his name on the school’s Wall of Distinction a year ago. It was an honor Guzman said he was happy to bestow. “He’s one of the most professional people I’ve worked with in my life,” he said of Padilla. “He’s such a pro.”
Guzman, who lives just east of Sanger, also came up with the concept of honoring Padilla that first time in tandem with the school’s 50-year anniversary, making it an even bigger deal. “He’s going to be the bridge to the past, present and future,” Guzman said of his
thinking at the time.
And it made sense.
Padilla had been around a long time, and Guzman figured Padilla would be around many more years.
He got it partly right. But Padilla told Guzman later that year — last year — that he was retiring.
There went the future component of the plan, Guzman said. But that sparked the next one.
“I said, ‘What can I do to really honor this guy?’” Guzman recalled. He made arrangements, and broke the news to Padilla at a small retirement party Padilla’s wife threw at the end of the school year.
“That was a shock,” Padilla said.
The newly named Joe Padilla Court will be remembered. Padilla said over the years he also played a lot of half-court pickup games there with friends.
And since the days he was known as “Dragon” by his Apache teammates, Padilla said he’s slowed down a bit. “Everything goes,” he said. “Your back,
your knees.”
Huerta said Padilla was
an excellent player, who at about 200 pounds and 6 feet 2 inches could post up on defense or offense. “He was silently aggressive,” Huerta said. “A quiet guy. Didn’t yell. He had very good position. He knew how to use his body. He knew the trajectory of the ball. He knew how to position himself to get the rebound.”
And in the years to come, as students see his name, somebody may tell them a little about the guy who
coached there for so many years. Guzman certainly won’t hold back.
Padilla is a modest guy. The one honor that will likely stick with him is the one he indicated with the final part of his interview. “I’ve had some connections with kids and hopefully made their lives better,” he said.
The reporter can be contacted by email at sangerheraldsports@gmail. com or by phone at the Herald at (559) 875-2511.