The Los Medanos College Mustangs women’s basketball team is gearing up for their upcoming season that is set to start in two weeks. Both the coaches and players are confident their talent and discipline will carry them far this season.
The team is almost completely brand new, with only four returning players, but what they lack in college level experience, they make up for in talent.
“I think we can do really well,” assistant Coach George Molina said about the season
. “We got some speed, we have some shooters who can shoot.
“They all played against each other in high school, so they know each other,” Molina said. “All four years of high school they played against one another, now they are going to be playing together, and the chemistry is good.”
The team struggled last year with attendance, but the timbre of the team seems to have changed.
“I think it’s going to be a cultural change,” head coach Mario Pharr said about the season. “Los Medanos hasn’t been known to be that good of a team, but this year we are going to change that.”
“We have the talent and the pieces,” he said. “The main focus is definitely defense for sure, defense wins championships.”
The team has been a long time in the making, and really started to form into what it is now when classes started in August.
“We’ve just been focusing on skill development during the summer, then at the beginning of the school year, that’s when we started focusing a lot more on the plays,” Phar said “We had a couple of jamborees where we look good, and people were saying, ‘Woah, Los Medanos is not the Los Medanos of the past.’”
The whole team culture seems to have shifted, according to No. 20 Blessing Uzoma.
“The discipline really wasn’t there last year, to be honest,” she said. “This year I feel like we are more disciplined. We’re locked in. Our coaches have us held at very high standards. We are doing our best, there’s no slacking or anything.”
“[Coach Mario] just has us very prepared for the upcoming players, especially Laney,” said Uzoma. “Laney’s a good team that we want to play and see what we can do out there. We are coming for them.”
Training started during summer and slowly but surely the team has sharpened itself into an elite unit dedicated to winning. With their games starting next month, the players are excited to prove themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the league. The selling point for this year is both their speed and chemistry.
“We did a lot of conditioning and just worked,” said No. 3 Amaia Ayala, one of LMC’s captains. “A big part of LMC’s game is number one, we’re small, we’re fast. That’s where our conditioning comes in. We could play four full quarters of a game.”
“I think we are really good with our fundamentals,” she said. “We can shoot. I think most people on the team have an all around game.”
Adding onto their individual skill, the cohesion between the team has been built up throughout their time together. The team now moves together like water down a mountain, and their hard work and long nights have paid off.
“We all build a lot of chemistry outside of practice and classes,” said No. 24 Sukie Ahluwalia, one of LMC’s captains. “A good team with good chemistry can be a team that does anything.”
The combination of skill and camaraderie will carry the Mustangs far this season, Ahluwalia said.
“I would definitely say come to the games,” she said. “Because this is going to be a really good season to watch.”
