Davis High girls basketball has new identity, goals, standards after historic start
Run, gun, press, rebound. Run again and gun some more.
That’s the new identity of Davis High girls basketball.
It’s all first-year head coach Tracy Cole knows.
Before playing basketball at Bowie State, Cole played a fast-paced, high-powered offense at Modesto Christian. So did current assistant coach Miles Scott. Scott brought that style to Big Valley Christian last season as head coach and won over 20 games.
“This is how I was raised,” Cole said after a league game against Ceres. “This is how (former Modesto Bee Boys Player of the Year) David (Paris) was raised. This is how Miles was raised. I think everyone is very proud of the team.”
The Spartans took over first place in the Western Athletic Conference on Tuesday, beating Pacheco, 60-54 to earn their 17th win on the season. Davis is looking for its first league title since going 9-0 in 2011-12 as members of the Modesto Metro Conference.
Both teams entered Tuesday’s matchup 4-1 in WAC play and, looking to bounce back from league losses last week. Leading scorer Kaliyanei Saykao went down with an ankle injury at the end of the second quarter in the Spartans’ first league loss to Ceres and Beyer’s Kylie Kulina handed Pacheco its first WAC loss with a buzzer-beating mid-range jumpshot. Both lost on Jan. 16.
Cole came back to Modesto after working in Seattle. She wanted to be back with family, see nieces, nephews, cousins and her parents Bobby and Rita Cole. Her father, Bobby, is a Modesto Junior College basketball hall of famer and has gained numerous honors at Modesto High and Stanislaus State. He is the founder of Modesto Slam-N-Jam, one of the most recognizable youth basketball organizations in Northern California.
Tracy coached youth basketball in Seattle but the job at Davis is her first coaching varsity. She says her dad is still a big part of her basketball experience.
“He lets me do my thing,” Tracy said with a smile. “You see him in the corner with the clipboard taking stats then we go home and talk about it. Every now and then, I’ll ask him something, but for the most part, he lets me do what I want to do.”
Cole took over the team with no expectations. She looked at the record, saw the 8-15 overall record and knew the team needed to get to work.
“I had no clue what I was getting myself into,” she said. “I am so proud of (the team), they have come a long way. They listen well, they work hard. One thing about this team is we’ve had a lot of close games. And they don’t fold.”
Cole says the biggest key to the Spartans’ turnaround is its chemistry. They get together for lunch, spend time with each other off the court inside and outside of school. All with their first-year coach. The joking and laughter off the court translates on it. She coaches her players hard. But won’t fail to tell them she does it out of love. Love for the team and love for competition.
“I think a lot of people see how I am on the sidelines, but they don’t see the love they get,” Cole said. “The giggling in practice, the coming to the house, the team get-togethers, the bondings. We do a lot of stuff together to build our team as a family. That’s why they’ve performed like this. They allow me to coach the way I coach. It’s tough love, but they get a whole lot of love. Everyone sees the (coaching) but nobody sees the pats on the back behind closed doors.”
The Spartans have been the surprise of the basketball season. Midway through league play, they are comfortably in the Division II playoff picture for what would be the program’s first playoff appearance since 2014, when they finished 14-7 overall and third in the MMC.
This has been a historic season for the Spartans. They won their first nine games, the program’s best start in over 20 years. Their 16 wins are already more than the last two seasons combined and mark the program’s first 15-plus win season since 2011-12. They are also on pace to win 20 games for the first time since that ‘11-’12 season, a Spartans team that went 23-5 led by Maryssa McDuffy and Kelci Haueter. If this year’s team continues on this pace, it will result in the first league championship since McDuffy and Haueter led the Spartans to the 2011-12 MMC title.
Early this season, Davis won tournaments at Escalon and Johansen high schools. They finished non-league play with wins over Modesto and Enochs. To start WAC play, they beat Central Valley, Lathrop, Livingston and Beyer by an average of 19 points before losing to Ceres 65-55.
The Davis turnaround has been done with nearly the same team as last season, led by senior Kaliyanei Saykao and junior Reagan Jamison. Saykao, a quick guard with range deep past the high school three-point line, is the team’s leading scorer. She hit 1,000 career points in her junior season. She is the primary ball handler and calming offensive presence for the outfit that averages 56 points a game. The team goes as she goes.
“She is the heart of the team,” Cole said.
Jamison, the team’s steadying presence in the middle, scored 28 points against Ceres and kept the Spartans in the game during moments of the third and fourth quarters before the Bulldogs pulled away. She rebounds, sets good screens and patrols the paint, doing all of the little things to lead Davis to success.
League play continues for Saykao, Jamison, Cole and the Spartans as they start the second half of WAC play. They travel to Johansen and Central Valley before hosting Lathrop and Livingston for their next four contests.
To advance to the Division II playoffs, Davis must finish top three in the WAC. If it isn’t a top-three league finisher, it needs to be a top 15 team in the section rankings. After Tuesday’s win over Pacheco, Davis is first in the league and ranked No. 10 in the MaxPreps Sac-Joaquin Section Division II rankings.
But Davis’ job is to take the rest of the season one game at a time.
This story was originally published January 22, 2025 at 12:00 PM.
