If things fall into place like Coach Sandrine Krul hopes, SBCC could be looking at one of its finest women’s basketball seasons. And that’s saying something for a Vaquero program that ended a 26-year drought to win a WSC title two years ago and set a school record with a 26-9 record in 2005-06.
Santa Barbara opens its campaign tonight in its own MTXE Tournament. That stands for “Mental Toughness, Extra Effort.” The Vaqueros will take on San Mateo at 8 p.m.
Orange Coast and Long Beach City will open the three-day tourney at 2 p.m. Friday, followed by Moorpark and Santa Ana at 4 p.m. and Riverside vs. Antelope Valley at 6. The championship will take place Sunday at 6 p.m.
The Vaqueros return eight players and two starters (Katie Randall, Nikki Graham) from last year’s squad that went 17-14 and finished second in the WSC North with a 9-3 record.
They’ve got a slew of talented newcomers on their 19-player roster, including 5-4 point guard Jennifer Ju of Vancouver, 3-point ace Janelle Wong of Dos Pueblos High, 6-2 Brittany Stephenson of Westchester and Estephanie Jolon of Fairfax.
“Jennifer Ju will remind you of Ari Hendrix (last year’s Vaquero star who’s now starting at NCAA Div. 2 North Carolina-Pembroke) with a little big more control,” said Krul, who’s starting her fifth season. “She’s very unselfish. Brittany and Estephanie could have gone to any community college five minutes from their house and they chose to come to Santa Barbara. That says a lot about them and a lot about our program. They were heavily recruited by every community college in Southern California.”
Krul also included 5-8 guard Francesca De Angelis among the top newcomers because of her “incredible jumping ability.” Ju and De Angelis will be in the starting lineup tonight, along with a trio of sophomores — Randall, the 6-foot Graham and 5-10 Josey Piercey.
“Piercey is our most improved freshman from last year,” Krul noted. “She’s been running marathons lately.”
Randall, Danielle Ariss and Alison Turley will serve as captains on the deep squad. When asked who will be the first players off the bench, Krul reeled off seven names.
“We’ll have Lauren Wells at the point, Danielle Ariss, Alison Turley, Aly Henington, Estephanie Jolon, Brittany Stephenson and Andrea Owens,” said Krul. “We can go big and run; we can go small and run. With 19 players, we can do a lot of things. We are a running team but with Estephanie (6-2), Nikki (6-0) and Brittany (5-10), that’s a big unit.
“Right now, we’re hoping to go 19 for 40 (19 players, 40 minutes). We’ll run and we’ll press. We didn’t have the personnel to press last year but this year, we want them to go hard for 3-4 minutes and we’ll get another unit in there. We’ll wear teams down.”
Krul said everyone is capable of draining 3-pointers, even the post players. The Vaqueros led the WSC North in scoring last year at 75.1.
“I don’t like making predictions but if they do everything they have to do, this will probably one of the best teams that SBCC has ever had,” she said. “This is the most talent we’ve had in my five years.
“We have 11 freshmen who are so talented. It’s going to be fun to watch them.”
