‘We’ve had girls pay their dues’: Experience leads Escalon basketball to surprise season
If you’re looking for the surprise of the season, look no further than the Escalon girls basketball team.
The Cougars (16-3-1, 6-1) have won more games this season than they have in the past 17, none of them tighter and more stressful than Tuesday night’s matchup with the Trans-Valley League’s third best team, Riverbank. Escalon beat the Bruins 34-32 on a layup in the game’s final seconds.
The Bruins’ game-tying shot attempt fell just short, off the rim.
“We’ve had girls pay their dues,” said head coach Joseph Dalpogetti. “Two of them have been on varsity since they were freshmen, one of them since she was a sophomore and we have very athletic sophomore (in) her second year of varsity now.
Seniors Marissa Silva and Soleil Gouzenne are the Cougars’ four-year varsity players, and Rachel Farley joined them a year later when all were sophomores. Current sophomore Macie Vickers is Escalon’s leading scorer.
The two teams have history.
Riverbank (14-5, 3-3) beat Escalon by nearly 20 points to win the championship in the early December tournament the Cougars hosted, then won 50-45 in their first league matchup. In that game, the Bruins went ahead by 17 in the third quarter but Escalon battled back, which Dalpogetti says did a lot for the team’s confidence.
“Because we answered back the 17-point deficit, I think that we had some confidence coming into this game where even if there were some ebbs and flows to the game, we knew we could answer.” Dalpogetti said.
The game was intense throughout, technical fouls were handed out and coaches had to yell to relay offensive plays and defensive instructions during timeouts.
Vickers finished with a team-high 13 points. Riverbank, which is in the midst of a turnaround season of its own, was led by junior Livi Fernandez’s 18 points.
Since their 15-win season in 2016-17, the Cougars hadn’t won more than 12 games in one year. The years included blowout losses, multiple seasons among the bottom teams in the TVL and no shot at a playoff appearance.
This year’s team has won six straight after its Jan. 4 loss to the Bruins.
“They have really had some bumps in the road when they were younger,” said Dalpogetti. “We were losing by 30, and we’re able to finish games a little better now.
“They’re building on the shoulders of everyone that’s that’s come before them that has struggled. They (past teams) have always played hard but these these girls are reaping the benefits now of a full program. They really put in the time.”
Taking things slow
Securing its best record in nearly two decades with one third of its season still to play would mean celebration for some teams, but not the Cougars.
Dalpogetti keeps his team grounded and in the moment.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Dalpogetti said. “We got to take it one game at a time. But this team is doing something that hasn’t been done since before the MaxPreps era, about 2004.”
If the TVL standings remain the same, one game they might have circled on their calendars is a Feb. 4 matchup with Hughson.
The Huskies are 5-1, with their only league loss coming against Escalon on Jan. 18, 45-37.
A gameplan for that early February matchup will have to wait, as they play Ripon Christian, Ripon and Livingston before playing the Huskies on the road. The end goal is just within reach, but the Cougars are taking things slow.
“I’m proud of how hard they’re working,” Dalpogetti said. “We know what we want, but we’re hesitant to talk about it. You’ve got to take it one day at a time.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2022 at 8:25 AM.
