Last year, the first season for women’s basketball head coach Julia Allender, the Panthers finished with a 5-21 record, marking the team’s 14th consecutive losing season.
This year, however, is a different story. The Panthers are off to a hot start with an 18-6 record, already surpassing the number of wins as the 2000-2001 season. But despite the 12-win turn around from last season’s campaign, Allender said this is no surprise.
Allender is not new to winning. Be- fore coming to City College, she was the head coach of the Ohlone College basket- ball team where she won more than 100 games in five years. Now, after a strong second year, Allender looks to continue her winning ways.
“It’s kind of what I’m about. It’s what I want to do, and it’s what I strive to make happen,” Allender said. “I work tirelessly to have seasons like this and to have kids accomplish what they’re able to accomplish. I am not a fan of mediocrity — it bores me.”
The 2015-2016 campaign began with the team’s upset win over Northern California’s No. 2-ranked City College of San Francisco at the Sierra College Sasha Brown Memorial Tournament. In that game, the Panthers outscored the Rams 22-10 in the fourth quarter in a 63-62 come-from-behind victory. They finished the tournament in second place after losing to Sierra College in the championship.
Just three weeks later, the team defeated CCSF again at the 39th Annual Tom Gilchrest Tournament in Visalia. “Beating [CCSF] a second time and then following it up the next night and beating [Delta College], things starting changing,” Allender said. “At that point [the players] started to understand that they can win games. It just helps that no matter what the situation, they have the understanding that, ‘Hey, we can go win this.’”
Something that has helped this season’s turn-around is having returning players, according to sophomore guard Jasmine Bernardo. Last year, the team’s lone sophomore was starting point guard Rayelle Ross.
“It was kind of hard for us to adjust, plus we had a new coach,” Bernardo said. “This year we know how Coach coaches and what she expects, so sophomores know what the standards are and it helps the freshmen.”
This season, Bernardo, along with sophomore forward Aleea Reese and four other players, are back and are determined not to repeat the team’s recent history.
“We just didn’t want to have the same feeling that we had after every game last year,” Reese said. “We had a goal this year to win the Big 8, and we knew that we couldn’t do that if we did what we did last year.”
Like last season, Bernardo (11.3 ppg) and Reese (13.5 ppg) are two of the team’s top three scorers this year behind top-scorer Jessica Lauderdale (16.1 ppg). Lauderdale and Bernardo are also top 20 in the state for 3-pointers per game.
However, the team has some obstacles to overcome. Though the seventh-ranked Panthers currently sit tied for second in the Big 8 Conference and look to be headed to the playoffs, five players must sit out the rest of the season because of grades and injuries. The team has been reduced to only seven available players.
Although they weren’t quite the winning team that they are now, the Panthers were in a similar predicament a year ago playing with only six players for most of the season.
Now, with only four games left in the regular season, the players know they will need to come together to make a run at the state championship.
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“This year we know how Coach coaches and what she expects, so sophomores know what the standards are and it helps the freshmen.”
– Jasmine Bernardo, Sophomore Guard
“We have to stay mentally focused on the goal,” said sophomore forward Aleea Reese. “The seven [players] that we have is all we have. No one is going to come and show up to put on a uniform and play. We’re all we have.”
