Boasting a strong core and a seemingly endless source of young talent, the girls’ varsity basketball team at Scotts Valley High School is making it look easy as it runs wild over the competition in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League.
The Falcons, with a 10-0 league record as of Wednesday, are riding a winning streak in SCCAL games that dates back to Jan. 28, 2013, says Head Coach Rick Silver.
The team, he said, is led by seniors Charlie Boyle and Mandy Silver, who are each having phenomenal seasons — respectively averaging 16.6 and 17.3 points per game.
In last week’s game against Soquel — Scotts Valley’s toughest league opponent — Mandy Silver had a triple double, 19 points and 12 rebounds 10 assists and 8 steals, just missing a quadruple double.
“She’s had a phenomenal season,” Silver said of his daughter. “I try not to be biased but the stats speak for themselves.”
Silver said that the team’s success is a whole-team effort.
“We’ve got a couple of juniors and a couple of sophomores getting it done,” he said, citing junior point guard Nikiya Bechtle’s average 14.6 points per game, and team-leading 5.5 steals per game.
He also recognized sophomore Sam Boyle’s 12.4 points per game and 10 rebounds per game.
“She’s really stepped up her game,” Silver said.
With so many talented players at his disposal, the team’s success was easy to predict.
“It’s a pretty high-powered team both offensively and defensively,” Silver said. “It makes it very difficult for teams to shut us down — there are at least four girls that can score 20 points any night.”
The stats seem to agree with Silver’s assessment, as the Falcon girls have outscored their opponents by an otherworldly 478 points, averaging 73 points per game.
In 10 SCCAL games so far, they have scored 730 points, while only allowing a combined 252.
“There are 11 girls on the team and every single one of them contributes — it really is a team effort,” Silver said.
One of the key factors to the Falcons’ success, Silver said, is team chemistry.
“Most of these girls have come up together through Scotts Valley schools,” he said. “The team chemistry is very much there.”
It doesn’t hurt either, he said, that many members of the team play on traveling teams during the offseason, keeping their skills sharp.
“At least six girls on the team that have played (Amateur Athletic Union basketball) in the spring and summer,” Silver said, adding that an intense preseason helps, as well. “We purposely scheduled a pretty tough preseason to get the girls ready so we would be at our peak.”
The program’s winning streak, he said, began when playing strong defense was made a priority.
“The turning point for the Scotts Valley program has been our defense,” Silver said. “When you get a team playing like that, it’s just the instinct of the girls.”
Looking forward, Silver said that the team is looking forward to punching its ticket to the Central Coast Section playoffs, and hopefully beyond.
“We have our sights on going to CCS,” Silver said. “Either way, our goal is to get to Nor Cal and go as deep as possible.”
