Winning their third tournament of the preseason, Escalon’s varsity basketball girls improved to 14-0 with a trio of wins this past week. They won the championship of the Ben Holt Holiday Invitational Tournament in Stockton, capturing their third straight tournament title. The tournament kicked off on Wednesday, Dec. 27 and continued Thursday and Friday, Dec. 28 and 29.
“We opened up with Langston Hughes Academy of Stockton. We were originally supposed to play Stone Ridge Christian of Merced, but they backed out of the tournament at the last second so Langston Hughes Academy stepped in,” said Escalon head coach Joseph Dalpogetti. “We led 35-5 at the end of the first quarter and never looked back. We won the game 79-23.”
Sammy Lang paced the team with 20 points, Ari Velasco had 15. Rounding out the quartet of double-digit scorers for Escalon were Madi Babasa with 13 points and Chloe Farley with 12.
“The second day we played Castlemont. They are a Division 1 team from Oakland,” Dalpogetti said.
Castlemont, coming in at 9-1, also was the number two ranked team from the small Oakland Section of the CIF.
“We talked about how this was a great challenge for us and the girls came out with a lot of intensity,” explained the coach. “We traded baskets for the first two minutes of the game but then we started pouring it on and led 26-7 at the end of the first quarter and led 48-12 at the half.”
Lang had 19 first half points so she saw fewer minutes in the second half but still finished with 19 points to lead the team. Babasa and Velasco each added 16 as the Lady Cougars cruised to the huge 68-24 victory over their opponent.
“In the championship we played Sac Adventist of Carmichael, a private school who came in with a 10-1 overall record,” Dalpogetti pointed out. “We were originally slated to play at 6:30 p.m., but due to their religious beliefs they can’t play after 5 p.m. on Fridays.”
The coach said he got a call a little after 8:30 p.m. Thursday night, indicating the game had been changed to a 9:30 a.m. Friday start for the championship contest.
“And we definitely started the game looking like a team that was planning on playing an evening game,” Dalpogetti admitted. “We trailed 15-11 after one and they scored first in the second quarter to put us down 17-11. We then went on a 15-0 run to take the lead 26-17 midway through the third.”
After a 6-0 answering run by Sac Adventist, the teams battled the rest of the third and Escalon still maintained the lead, 34-26 as they entered the fourth quarter.
“We pushed the lead to 40-26 before winning 42-34,” Dalpogetti said of the hard-fought contest for the hardware. “They’re a sneaky good team that treated this game like it was their Super Bowl.”
Escalon is a larger school than Sac Adventist and Dalpogetti said since the Lady Cougars went in 13-0, the target on their back just keeps growing bigger.
“They came three hours early the day before to scout us against Castlemont,” he said of Sac Adventist.
But Escalon was able to keep them at bay and get the victory and the title.
“Sammy Lang finished the game with 25. She was named Tournament MVP for the third time this year,” Dalpogetti said.
Finishing 2023 with a 14-0 record, Escalon was scheduled to host Ceres in the final non-league game on Tuesday, Jan. 2.
“We begin league play with a very good Riverbank team,” Dalpogetti said of opening up Trans-Valley League action on the road.
The squads will be at Riverbank on Thursday, Jan. 4 with JV at 5:30 p.m. and varsity with a 7 p.m. tip off time.
