The Bakersfield College women’s basketball team has had a rough season, but they will continue to fight through having a young team and injuries.
“We are a young ball club, we have had a lot of growing pains. The second week of the season we had (forward) Kapresha Davis tear her ACL,” said head coach Paula Dahl.
Adding to the injuries are sophomore Catie Mueller and freshman Cristen Perry who had “really bad ankle sprains that lingered on through the end of Christmas,” according to Dahl.
Sophomore Tiffany Jones had to leave the team due to illness, and Perry quit the team for an unknown reason.
Dahl mentioned that this season will be a good learning experience for her team, “I believe that this year will be a year that they (the players) will have learned so much from. Right now, it’s just trying to help them recognize that we still have opportunities, and that they need to fight and be strong.”
Dahl said that her team’s goals for the rest of the season haven’t changed since the beginning of the season. “We want them (the players) to play hard defense, we want them to talk for 40 minutes, and we want them to box out and rebound.”
Dahl mentioned that the most important thing is that her team continues to battle.
“No matter what’s happening, you still battle and are still diving for loose balls,” she said.
On Jan. 30, the women’s basketball team faced off against the Citrus Owls.
After being tied with the Owls 6-6 for several minutes, the Renegades started to make poor passes and committed a lot of turnovers, which led to a 78-46 loss.
“That’s been the theme of our season. We started out pretty strong. Our first play of the game, we ran our offense and got an easy lay-up. Citrus came at us pretty hard; I think they got away with a little bit, and we didn’t know how to respond to that,” Dahl said.
Citrus was led by Terri Washington, who scored 35 points.
With the loss to Citrus, the Renegades fell to 3-19 overall and 1-5 in the Western State Conference.
On Feb.16, the women’s basketball team will advocate for the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association to promote breast cancer awareness. Anyone wearing pink to the game, which starts at 5:30 p.m., will get into the game free.