Page 9 - Sanger Herald 3-1-18 E-edition

SangerSports
SANGER HERALD * PAGE 1B * THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
Sierra tackles Lady Apaches in Tollhouse despite 2nd half surge
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Two coaches faced off in the Sierra High School gym for the opening round of the California Interscholastic Federation Central Section Division III girls basketball playoffs.
Each helmed a team for the first season, but neither was a stranger to the sport.
Far from it. But only one could emerge a winner. And on Feb. 21, that honor went to Sierra head coach Sandra Marbut. Her Chieftans dispatched the visiting Apaches by a score of 56-50.
Marbut congratulated Sanger head coach David Campbell after the game. “Tell your girls that’s a lot of respect they earned,” she said.
The comment boiled down to the furious comeback staged by the Lady Apaches after a first half that resulted in an anemic offense against the Hawks, scoring only seven points in the first quarter and 14 in the second. The score was 36-21 at the half.
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Cu-Nisha Mitchell attempts a rally late in the game.
“Sierra got a very quick start, jumping into a
10-point lead after the first quarter,” wrote Sanger master statistician Ron Blackwood.
But the Apaches shook off whatever funk they had fallen into by the second half and regained their composure, hitting the majority of their free throws, landing more of their shots and putting up a furious defense. Senior Stephanie Herring pulled down 14 rebounds, two blocks and scored 12 points to lead Sanger, with eight of those points in the second half.
Freshman Jackie Kulow also scored eight points in the second half. She had 10 on the night.
“We stepped it up,” said junior Cu-Nisha Mitchell. “We got way better.”
“We were down by a lot,” said junior Annie Lopez. “But we came out and executed in the second. Coach said we showed our real character. He said we showed we had heart. It was a close game. We just came up short.”
Sanger pulled within three points with 2:34
remaining in the fourth quarter on a flurry of activity from Kulow who nailed a shot from two- point range then followed it up with a three-point long ball and got fouled. She celebrated by making her free throws.
While in the end, the effort couldn’t erase the Cheiftans’ lead, it did restore a bit of energy to the Sanger fans who drove all the way up a twisty and dark Highway 168 to rural Tollhouse in the Sierra foothills.
Campbell said the adjustments the team made after the first half turned the game around but weren’t quite enough. “It was hard to overcome that first quarter,” he said. “They made a couple more plays than us at the end. We made it a game when it wasn’t a game at all.”
Campbell said the returning players will be able to learn from the experience and take it to the upcoming season. “That’s the takeaway we’re going to have,” he said.
For Ashley Mata, a
senior, the game was her last. “We tried our best,” she said.
But Mata, like Herring, will be heading outside to play softball. She said she’s looking forward to it.
Mitchell said the basketball team started the season with a bunch of new players who didn’t really know each other. Then they lost a key senior near the beginning of the season. But they learned to play together and trust each other, she said. “We got more chemistry,” she said. “Next year, half of us are coming back. So next year we’ll get it.”
And for Campbell it will be another season. He’s previously coached basketball, so he knows his stuff and his team will be more familiar with his style and program.
And Marbut said her team, the No. 6 seed, was ready to face No. 3 Selma in the quarter finals. “We’ll go try to see what we can do,” she said. “We have a pretty good sense of what we can do."
They lost Feb. 23, 74-68.
Apaches make it rain — more or less
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Isaiah “Irod” Rodriguez has played varsity basketball four years.
But March 4, 2017 and a loss to Selma at Selland Arena sticks in his memory. He wants the validation that comes with a championship. The ring. Although in this case, a ring remains more like a metaphor.
He really just wants the big win. The bragging rights. He wants his team to bring home the title.
And that’s what was on Rodriguez’s mind about 10 p.m. Feb. 22 as he attempted to wolf down a rather anemic slice of pizza. His team, the boys varsity Apaches, had just dismantled the No. 8 seed in the California Interscholastic Federation Central Section Division III playoffs, Frontier High, by a lopsided score of 49-31. The Titans, who drove all the way from Bakersfield, failed to score even a single point in the third quarter.
So rather than eat the slice of pizza, which obviously was calling to him, Rodriguez reluctantly moved it away from his mouth and vowed to win that championship.
And return to Selland Arena?
“Definitely,” he said, ready to devour that pizza. Meanwhile somebody slipped him another tinfoil- wrapped slice.
The Apaches dismantled No. 4 Mount Whitney on Tuesday 73-49 to face No. 3 Immanuel at 4 p.m. March 3 at Selland.
The questions for Rodriguez weren’t done.
Sanger had a tough time of it late in the regular season. “We just got beat up in the CMAC,” said Rodriguez’s head coach, Al Alverado III, just minutes earlier. “Mentally and physically.”
Alvarado referred specifically to key losses Edison, Bullard and a
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Luke Dillon goes up for two points. He had 14 in the Apaches win over Frontier.
Eduardo Martinez, Sanger high principal Dan Chacon and athletic director Brian Penner (who I refer to as “the man who never sleeps” because he’s always working) put their heads together with Jesse Solorio, custodial team leader, and a half dozen of his staff and came up with a solution straight out an old Disney comedy.
The custodial crew, or rather Solorio, hurried off to get the school district’s big blue scissor lift, and a couple of the crew rigged a tarp to divert the water off the in-bound court to the sidelines where a crew, including Martinez, spent the rest of the game mopping up the near constant stream of water.
The game had to go on. Sanger Unified does not mess around.
Time lost amounted to about an hour. The fans didn’t appear to mind. But some, assistant principal Jon Tillotson said, did get a little loud. Of course that just made the experience of attending a basketball game more like a football game. And that can’t be all bad.
Basketball, under Alvarado’s leadership, has continued to become increasingly exciting. Win or lose, his teams put on a show.
At the center of the action that night was a relaxed Morice Norris, who scored 18 points to lead the Apaches and collected six steals. Norris handed out assists, passed when the opposing Titans expected him to drive all the way to the basket and generally befuddled Frontier’s players while doing whatever his own teammates needed.
Flawlessly.
Norris is also a man of few words. When he’s on — like he was against the Memorial Panthers during that home game — there’s no stopping him. However, he prefers results over talk. A slight smile was all
he allowed after the game. And Avery Chatman, another senior, is very similar. Not a lot of reaction. But those who know him saw satisfaction with the accomplishment show ever so slightly. “Next?” he said, responding to a question for comment. “To knock out the next team. Get the ring. It’s not as easy as that, but we’ll
work hard to get it.” Romeo Little doesn’t
usually say much either Next up was Mount Whitney, the No. 4 seed, on Tuesday. The Pioneers from Visalia beat No. 13 East Bakersfield 67-53 in the opening round. The No. 1 Apaches had a bye that round. The winner goes to
the finals.
High stakes.
Damien Duarte, a junior
who’s increased his playing time incrementally all season and scored both his free throws that night, indicated he believes his team’s losing days are long gone. “We finally came out prepared,” he said. “And competed like we did in the HIT (Hoover Invitational Tournament), like we had to prove something.”
Frontier ran into a buzz saw. “It was a good way to bounce back after a not-so- good CMAC,” said Cameron Stanley, a junior guard who had three assists and three points. “We just have to get ready for the next one.”
Alvarado said the win will help. “We needed that to get the team confidence back,” he said.
When he got his team assembled later in the classroom across from the gym, Alvarado heaped on the praise. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “Very good on the defensive end. You really shut them down. We were on the same page. And that’s what it’ll take to win this whole thing."
“We're back," Paredes said Tuesday.
"Let's win it this time," Alvarado said.
vengeful San Joaquin Memorial that slapped the Apaches at the Panthers' home court in Fresno after a bruising loss in the Coach Dean Nicholson Gym mid January. Of course, Edison and Bullard are Division I and Memorial is a Division II standout that plays like a Division II college team.
Rodriguez still hadn’t eaten either slice of pizza. The next question went something like this (but nowhere near as succinct): Do you think your team can do it? Has it worked through all its demons? Its inconsistencies?
“I know we can do it,” he said. “We play for each other.”
And that was a bit of code, something ball players say. It means they get it. They understand each others strengths and weaknesses. They play all five on the court. Like Dennis Rodman, the role-player, the guy who’s admittedly a little strange off the court (what is that Kim Jong Un friendship about anyway?) He got rebounds. He frustrated the opposing team’s best players. He helped win
championships. He played for his teammates.
This is actually a discussion I had with Phillip, the step-dad of one of Rodriguez’s teammates while we waited for the game to begin. It had a rain delay. But more on that later.
Rodriguez is a role player. He’s clean up. Miss a basket and he’ll grab the rebound and dump it where it belongs. He frustrates opposing players. But he bears no off-court resemblance to Rodman. His mom says he’s a man of few words. But she said he does like to say, “What’s for dinner?”
And those two slices disappeared. Rodriguez said they weren’t even worth considering as an appetizer. He wanted a full pizza — perhaps an extra large — to himself.
His dad, Eugene, had that “whatever you want” kind of expression dads get when they’re intensely proud of their kids. And that went for the other parents, who like the Rodriguez family, never miss a game and travel every game night to
whatever outlying venue their kids play.
At least those I’ve gotten to know. The Apache parents are a supportive group. And that goes across the sports spectrum, from tennis to soccer and swimming to volleyball. It’s that one town, one team thing Sanger Herald editor Dick Sheppard always talks about.
And that mentality, that support was evident the night of the game. This goes back to that aforementioned rain delay. A leak had formed somewhere on the north side of the gym and dripped water from one of the region’s increasingly rare downpours right onto the court underneath the baskets.
Sanger assistant coach Mike Paredes helpfully offered this bit of advice: “Your headline could be ‘Making it rain.’” Knowing Paredes, he meant it as a double entendre, both for the rain itself and for his team’s inevitable treatment of the visiting Titans.
Turned out he was right on both fronts.
Assistant superintendent