Dynamic JV girls basketball team responds well to new coach, builds camaraderie

The sweat drips down their faces as they continue shooting ball after ball into the basket. From the low block, from the elbow, from the free throw line and finally from behind the arc.

Basketball fundamentals are what the new JV girls basketball coach, Mike Johnson, has been focusing on since their practices started in November.

Apparently, it’s been working. After a horrible loss to San Pasqual, the girls rallied against Mt. Miguel, which has one of the highest ranked girls varsity programs. During that game MC won 46-15, and the rout boosted their confidence.

“I think we’re doing pretty good,” sophomore co-captain Jocelyn Vingerelli said. “We’re doing better than last season.”

After very slight losses to Vista and La Costa Canyon, the girls have still not lost hope.

This year the team consists of four freshmen, four sophomores, and one junior.

“There are some girls playing with us during tournament season and they practice with us, but they can’t play with us right now,” Vingerelli said. “If they have a game before us, she can play in it and then play in our game, but she’s not allowed to go back to the freshmen team. Like once you go up, you can’t go back down that week. We have two people on the novice team that do that. One’s a sophomore and one’s a freshman.”

Despite the few girls jumping up to JV from novice every once in a while, the team has camaraderie that hasn’t existed in the past few seasons.

“We’re not very cliquey like we used to be,” Vingerelli said. “We get along really well. We haven’t really done anything outside because we’re with each other every day. We kind of get sick of each other. It’s just that we see each other every day except Sunday.”

This year the team even has practices on Saturdays. The team wants to improve from last year, and the only way to do so is to practice…a lot.

“[Our practices] are fun,” Vingerelli said. “It depends on what we do. Sometimes we scrimmage. Sometimes we just do a lot of running. We work on a lot of technique, and he [Johnson] has a lot of interesting plays.”

Despite some early injuries, including a bruised tailbone for freshmen Cheyenne Enriquez, the girls are hopeful that this will be a successful season under their new coach.

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