Mounties freshman Rachel Williams dribbles the ball upcourt during the Mt. SAC tip off tournament on Nov.11-13 James Choy/MOUNTAINEER
Coming off successful seasons, both the Mt. SAC men’s basketball and women’s basketball programs geared up for the new season as they tipped off tournament play over the weekend in San Francisco and at home, respectively.
The Men’s team, ranked No. 11 in the state and No. 6 in the pre-season polls, kicked off with a trip to San Francisco state with an opening game against Napa and a second game against the host San Francisco City College Rams and No. 3 ranked Fresno.
Interim Head Coach Criss Freeman said despite the infusion of young talent, the team is prepared to continue the success Mt. SAC has enjoyed in recent years.
“I think we’re prepared, we have a lot of newcomers this year, not a lot of returners from last year, but we do have three sophomores that are coming back. We have a lot of new faces, but they are in here working hard, I think we’re in shape, I think we’re a pretty good team.”
Freeman pointed to three sophomores in particular: Steve Mallory, Ervin Ware, Cliff Simms and Steven Mallory who are expected to teach the system to incoming freshmen and transfers.
“We’re fortunate we had a great year last year, we were ranked No. 1 all year pretty much, we also had nine sophomores, so we lost a lot of sophomores, but the 3 we have coming back are good quality kids, and they should help us get over the hump, I’m hoping,” said Freeman.
“We have a lot of talent on this team, We’re not as big as we were the last previous years, but we’re tough, we’re athletic and I think we’ll be putting an exciting product on the floor,” said Freeman adding the toughest transition the team faces year in and year out is training new players in the Mt. SAC system.
Some of the talent to keep an eye out for according to Freeman include Darnell Martin from Nogales High, Corey Allen, a highly recruited shooting guard from St. Louis, and Garrett Nevels, who red shirted at St. Johns last year, from Palisades High School.
Freeman said of the returning players, Ware is one of the most solid.
“Irving Ware our starting point guard started every game last year, he played alongside Antonio Biglow they made up a very formidable backcourt and I think he’ll be able to do the same with Corey Allen, he’s really our glue right now, he’s our floor leader.
“These new freshmen and transfers that are coming in are not used to competing the way we compete, we just teach them the way we do things and the intensity we play and practice with,” he said.
The women’s basketball team is coached by Brian Crichlow, who was named Southern California Coach of the Year this past February. Chrichlow is optimistic about the team’s performance on the court, despite their youth.
“This is probably the most amount of freshmen we’ve had on the roster in my 13 years here at Mt. SAC. It will be an interesting group, a very talented group, we’ll be better later, but I just think if they can play within the confines of the system and play hard, they can get a lot of things accomplished faster.”
Chrichlow said the coaching philosophy does not change, even if the composition of the team has.
“We’re just a little bit more patient, we’re still as demanding, we want still done in the same manner time-wise, but we’re a little bit more patient, we know we’re going to make mistakes early, we know we’re going to take losses early, we have to coach every possession as opposed to every other possession now and roughly by late December we’re ready to roll.”
He said some of the players to watch for include returning point guard Ashawnte Hawkins who is recovering from a torn ACL, All Conference player Arielle George, and Leticia Galarza from Bishop Amat among others.
“We also look for them to make an impact early, we need that push from them because those are players we are expecting a lot from for the entire year from start to finish,” said Chrichlow.
The people standing on the sidelines may change, but one thing never does. “Because we’re at Mt. SAC, whether we have a great year or a down year people are always going to bring their A game to us.”
-Ariel Carmona Jr.
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