Thirteen Malibu High School (MHS) basketball players and two coaches received post-season recognition last week.
Seven members of the Sharks boys team were named to an All-Frontier League team, and six players of the girls squad were named to an All-Conference squad.
Both of the teams’ coaches were named coach of the year.
Boys basketball players Trey Cortwright and Cordell Newton were named co-MVPs of the eight-team Frontier League. The seniors, along with junior guard Cade McMillin, were named to the league’s All-Frontier League first team.
Senior forward Dane Marshall was named to the second team, and Sharks Luke Lundin, Jake Hughes and David Hudson received honorable mentions.
Second-year coach Richard Harris nabbed the conference’s top coach.
Girls basketball players Gianna Chaisson and Nina Hungerland were named to the girls All-Frontier League first team, while Alana Baer was named to the second team.
Sara Joshi, Kendall Jordan and Sophie Beauvoir received honorable mentions. Girls Sharks coach Andy Meyer was recognized as co-coach of the year, along with Foothill Tech coach Jason Edgmond.
The recognitions came a week after both the boys and girls seasons came to an end in the CIF playoffs.
Boys basketball
The boys team finished the season with an overall 12-13 record after being defeated by Morningside in the first round of the state tournament on Feb. 17. The girls team finished with an overall record of 14-11 after falling to Viewpoint in the first round on Feb. 18.
Coach Harris said the season was a success.
“We did want to get a playoff win, but Morningside was definitely a tough opponent,” he said. “We still won back-to-back Frontier League Championships, so I have to be happy with that.”
Before beginning play in the Frontier League, the Sharks had a 1-10 record. The squad lost their first league game, but then had 11 consecutive wins to win the championship.
The coach likened the season to a rollercoaster ride because the number of losses to begin the season, followed by the double-digit game winning streak.
“We had a weird, crazy start to the season,” he said. “For us to win 11 straight was truly a shock.”
A highlight of the season was when 6-foot-2 sophomore David Hudson had a fast break dunk during a win at Foothill Tech.
“The whole team celebrated like we had won a championship,” Harris said.
Six seniors will be graduating and leaving the boys squad this year: Caleb Gomes, Newton, Marshall, Jordin Taylor, Cotwright and Brian Canup.
Harris said the players will be sorely missed. He added that two starters — guard McMillin and big man Lundin — will be returning next year along with other players that were the Sharks’ playing time rotation.
“We have a good group coming back,” he said.
Girls basketball
The girls basketball team was led by a group of seniors that have mostly played together for the last four years. The group included Baer, Ana Cervantes, Ari Ross, Chaisson, Jordan, Nara Pena, Hungerland and Joshi.
Coach Meyer said that he told the group when they were freshmen that progressing into a good basketball team would be a struggle sometimes.
“That first year, we only won one game,” he said. “I told them, ‘If you work hard and stick with it, it will pay off in the long run.’ I told them that they have the potential to be one of the best teams in school history.”
The seniors led a team to a second-place tie in the Frontier League, with a 9-5 conference record.
Meyer said the season was a success.“We finished with the best record a girls team has ever had in school history in our league,” he said.
Meyer said he will miss the group of graduating girls, and that he really enjoyed watching the seniors be mentor to the squad’s younger players.
“They would show them what to do at practice, the sacrifices you have to make — you know these girls really are scholar athletes, so they would have games and not get home till 11 o’clock at night and have school the next day,” he said. “The younger girls get to see how the older girls handled school and playing. The younger girls had some great role models. That really helps us build for next year.”