For the first time in 22 years the girls’ varsity team will have a new coach. Coach Robert Gomez took over the reins in November after being hired to teach Freshman Seminar in October. The change was a bit of a challenge. Gomez said, “Getting to know all the girls right as the season was starting and trying to coach them at the same time was a bit hard.”  

This is not Gomez’s first job, he has been coaching since he was in college. He said, “I coached the freshman team at Watsonville High School while I was in college, then I coached at Pajaro Valley since the first year after I graduated college. I was the boys’ varsity coach for 7 years and for 5 years I was the athletic director. The last two years I was the assistant coach at Watsonville and now I’m here.”  He’s only been coaching boys until now. “There’s not much difference between coaching guys or girls, except I think that girls are a little easier to coach because they try really hard and motivate themselves, whereas boys you have to try to motivate them a lot more.”

Gomez’s expects to win a league title. “We’ve gotten off to a slow start, but me starting late has been a little bit difficult on me and the girls but I think we’re still on the right path to being able to compete for a league title. I’m hoping that’s everybody’s expectations this year,” he said. Gomez said he has had no big issues except having less space than he’s used to for practice. “I’ve had to adjust my practices a lot because I’m used to having a lot of baskets to do a lot of individual stuff and a lot of shooting stuff but other than that there haven’t been many challenges.”

The team was hit hard because many of the players graduated, but did return three players – juniors Lydia Garcia and Bryannalee Moreno, and sophomore Brittney Rodriguez.  Freshman Karely Apodaca has gotten early impressions from the girls and said, “I would say that our point guard Lydia Garcia and our forward Karely Apodaca have stood out the most- they both work really hard and have definitely been the leaders on our team so far.”  

Despite the team’s 3-9 preseason record, Gomez wasn’t overly concerned. “I’m not too worried about it, we’ve lost 3 games that we had the lead in during the last 2 minutes, so we’re right where we want to be. I knew that we would struggle a little bit as far as experience- we started a freshman and two sophomores. They’re really young, so it doesn’t scare me too much as long as we’re getting better as the season goes on and we’re playing in those games against tough teams.”

Although the team dropped its league opener to Alvarez, it bounced back to win the next four to stand at 4-1, in first place in the MBL’s Pacific Division. “Some of the girls have experience from last year where they competed for a title. They got really close, so I know that’s their goal, to finish off what they fell short of last year.”

Gomez felt that preseason could have gone better than it did, “Preseason was a little bit rough with Christmas break we played a lot of games short handed but the goal was to get ready for league. I think we accomplished that, we got better as the season went on, the players understood what I was trying to do better. I think our goal was accomplished even though we didn’t finish with the record we wanted to.”

Gomez was also satisfied with the group of girls he’s coaching, “We missed a couple of girls during break because they were having their vacation set before hand but the girls that were there worked really hard, they came back ready to work, so I’m really pleased, we’re 4-1 in league alone in first, so that’s what we’ve been aiming for everybody came back ready to go, everybody came back in shape so they they worked out a little bit on their own, that all I can ask for, that they come out and be ready to play when they’re here.”

The chemistry and bond between the girls hasn’t been an issue to Gomez, “The chemistry on the team is really good. I think the previous coach, Coach Battaglini, had a big influence on that. All the girls on the team get along, they all hang out together, and we go out to eat after the games, so the chemistry hasn’t been a problem so far.”

Gomez said that his team has improved as a whole overall, “Lydia really picked up the slack during the break and took more of a scoring roll. Karely’s first game was against Watsonville and she came back and scored 24 points, so she kind of came right back in into her role and Lydia had 25. I think it kind of helped our team grow a little bit because some girls didn’t have to do as much as before when we were missing people. They had to step up and score and do other things, so I think it’s helped our team get stronger now for league because we’re a little bit deeper than we were before people started leaving for vacation. They are probably our two leading scorers. Brittney has stepped up and played really well and Cassandra Benavidez has stepped in, she hasn’t missed any games and she’s improved big time.”

From the player’s perspective, point guard Lydia Garcia had a few things to say about how preseason went. “I thought it was a struggle and we were an incomplete team for a good while and still had a lot of things to brush up on. I feel that we improved a lot as a team and everybody has improved individually. We learned how to play together- most of us for the first time.” She also said, “In the beginning we didn’t have that much chemistry. There was no drama whatsoever except for being punctual to practice and having to manage tutorials, but besides that I feel that as a team now,  we’re doing better and we’re playing as a group rather than individually. We all feel like we’re together.There’s no “beef” between us. We’ve had no issues as a team. Only playing together for the time, that’s it.”

As for the rest of the season, Garcia has high hopes. “My expectations for league are to win every single game from now on since we already have a loss. Alvarez is definitely beatable, we’ve already beat North Country- it’s our turn to beat them in their home. Watsonville, Monterey, and Pajaro Valley should be all wins. I expect us to do very well and improve more as a team and everybody to make their last improvements for the season.” She also said, “I’ve seen a lot of improvement from Cassandra, she wants to win more and pushes herself. I see that because before as a player, I didn’t get that feel from her, but I see it in her now.” Lastly, she said, “Gomez is a very good coach, he’s a patient he’s strict, but he knows the game of basketball really well, we’ve gotten really close to him.”