The Aliso Girls Basketball team is still alive and competing in the 2023-2024 season, their hard work and preparation paying off.
Following the win against Tesoro, the Wolverines have since rematched both The San Juan Hills Stallions and the San Clemente Tritons in the second go-around in the South Coast League. Unfortunately, against both teams the Wolverines fell short, losing by 44 against the Tritons and 45 against the Stallions.
Days later, the girls battled it out and fought hard but conceded another loss to Trabuco Hills.
Things were not looking so good for the Wolverines as they were out of a playoff spot. The Wolverines needed to win the remaining games in matchups against Tesoro.
Throughout the regular season, Aliso had not lost to Tesoro, proving to be the weakest team in the league.
In response to the close Trabuco Hills game, the Wolverines blew out Tesoro at home, winning by the largest amount of points they have put up this year, winning 66-33.
Because of the record, Aliso’s league record has improved to the same record that Trabuco Hills had.
Therefore, because the league standings were tied, the Wolverines battled against Trabuco at Tesoro High School, a neutral location.
Ultimately, the Wolverines were in ecstasy as the final fourth-quarter buzzer went off, securing the win for Aliso Niguel in a dominant effort against Trabuco, winning 48-32.
This was a pivotal moment for the team, who had had their ups and downs throughout the season. The girls celebrated their victory by getting into one big group hug at center court.
Olivia Carbajal (11) describes this moment of victory for the girls.
“It was a super kind of unreal moment. We started the season on kind of a bad note when our coach left, so it was kind of a last-minute thing to get a new coach. It felt amazing that all of our hard work and hours of practice paid off.”
The team spends a lot of time not just together on the court, but off the court as well.
Carbajal adds, “After a lot of our games we go to In-N-Out a lot to eat dinner”.
The Wolverines had their first-round matchup in CIF against Saint Margarets High School in the first round of the CIF playoffs. Although the Wolverines battled very hard in the game, they got knocked out of the first round, losing the game 33-50.
It was a big accomplishment for the girls to even be able to fight back from a couple of tough losses at the start of the season to secure a playoff spot. This showed great resilience amongst the girls.
The CIF game was also the last game for the seniors as well. Shyla Garg, one of the players for Aliso, comments what her favorite memory of the seniors was.
“My favorite memory was rooming together with them on the San Diego trip. It was a lot of fun.”
Aliso Girls Basketball will be having their end-of-season banquet shortly in the cafeteria.
