Lights shined in the Ventura College gym as junior Corrin Conant sang the national anthem, signaling the beginning of the first home boys’ basketball game of the season against St. Bonaventure High School. Foothill lost 23-71.

Parents of the players wildly shouted praises and advice on how the team should be playing while the players busily ran up and down the court in the beginning.

Players starting in the first home game replaced players who are ineligible to play due to the CIF 30-day sit-out period. This was different from what the players were used to, but they were prepared to start, having been told in practice they would have to fill in for the absent starters according to Nellie Castellanos.

Castellanos, spectator and Ventura Unified School District administrative specialist, pointed out that these were not the starting players, which she believes may have caused problems early in the game.

“They don’t have five or six of their starters, they’re sitting out for the 20 or 30 days or whatever period, so this is not their starter team,” said Castellanos.

Foothill had the ball tipped over to them after the jump, but shortly had the ball stolen, allowing for the first points of the game to go to St. Bonnie.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/179904551″ params=”color=a53232&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

The first quarter ended with six points for Foothill and 20 points for St. Bonnie.

In the second quarter, Foothill started with the ball. It was passed in, then stolen, resulting in St. Bonnie’s first point of the second quarter. A pass in is when a point is scored by the opposite team or the ball goes out of the boundary lines and a player has to pass the ball onto the court to a player on their team.

Player and sophomore Tyler Ragansutton was fouled by St.Bonnie, giving him a chance for a free point in the free throw. He missed the first shot, but the second shot added to Foothill’s score of six.

Castellanos believes that the players definitely could have played harder in the first half.

“So far they’re doing their best, but they could be better. They could rebound more, they could press more, and [allow fewer] turn-overs,”said Castellanos.

Castellanos noted that in the first half, players were not very “tight” in their defense, which she felt has been better in practices.

“It was great to have our first game and play someone else besides ourselves in practice and we appreciate everyone who came out and watched the game tonight,” said Foothill boys’ basketball coach Dean Prophet.

Principal Joe Bova agreed with Castellanos that the players had many chances to get in shots. Bova believes that the team has “some work to do” on their offense.

“They gave up a lot of easy drives at the basket and a lot of easy passes to the sides,” said Bova.

In quarter three, Foothill began to catch up to St. Bonnie, going in for more rebounds and pressing more on defense.

This resulted in the team boosting their score from eight to 16 by the end of quarter three.

“At times they did a nice job of moving the ball, and they definitely hustled,” said Bova.

Coach Dean Prophet commented on how the team continued to show support for one another even though they were losing .

“They encouraged each other and they never quit, and the effort was always there and they stayed positive,” said Prophet.

They went for more rebounds and the team pressed more, allowing them to block more shots from St.Bonnie.

“Second half I think we could do much better taking care of the ball and the difference in the scoring,” said Prophet.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/179902893″ params=”color=930b0b&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Ragansutton agrees and believes the team needs to improve on taking better care of getting the ball up and down the court in the future.

“I think we could have taken better shots and we could have ran the plays better. I think our defense could have been better,” he said. “There’s many things, but we just need to improve a lot”.

St.Bonnie started with the ball in the fourth quarter, but as soon as the ball was passed onto the court, it was stolen by Foothill for an easy two-point lay-up by Ragansutton.

Although the game went to St.Bonnie, Prophet felt the team played well in the last half of the game.

“It was great to have our first game and play someone else besides ourselves in practice and we appreciate everyone who came out and watched the game tonight,” said Prophet.

Background Photo Credit: Austin Hunt/The Foothill Dragon Press