If you ever find yourself at South during the night, the squeak of shoes on the court and the smacking of basketballs echoes throughout the halls. These sounds come only from the South El Monte Basketball Girls practicing relentlessly every night. The tedious hours of practice come to fruition on game day where they face opponents from districts all around. Both JV and Varsity put in the massive amounts of effort to ensure this season goes off without a hitch.

Indulging further into their practices Bestabe Alfaro comments, “We do a lot of running and then we’ll go on to shooting drills and then we do defensive lines to learn our places”. Thinking as one is another key aspect to keeping the team strong and planning these plays makes it easier during games. Dribbling and passing are a basic essential to any basketball player, especially honing skills make for great players.

Varsity basketball girls work relentlessly towards improving themselves and have practice every day for two hours. Due to the constant time spent together a bond like no other formed between the teammate. “Anytime we go to tournaments we always find a way to listen to music and do karaoke and well even play hide-in-go-seek in other schools,” Sheyla Mondragon states. Besides the team bonding game day is a day to learn, “We get to see how we did, we get to learn from it and we get to make some changes,” Alexis Guzman states. These varsity girls face off against the most competitive teams in Southern California and their strong mindset will succeed in the future.

JV basketball girls have the same drive to win and compete against other teams. Their team does the same drills, same hours, but not the same days due to their schedule not being finalized. ”JV is more for people who’ve never played before and their barely getting the feel of it and then Varsity is for people who are committed and will benefit the team,” Betsabe Alfaro comments. Although the season has barely started the JV girls are beginning to condition their raw talent into valuable players.

Hardships are plentiful in any sport, but our basketball girls can overcome any obstacle. The long game nights won’t stop the girls from performing their best and giving their all this season.