There are times in life when sports bring people together in difficult circumstances. For the Malibu High girls basketball team, taking the court last week against Grace Brethren brought a community together after a teammate’s father passed away following a long fight with cancer.
Moments before tip-off, a grieving Ari Ross arrived in tears to support her teammates after her father had died earlier that morning. Malibu coach Andy Meyer instantly embraced Ross on a day full of emotions. Playing with heavy hearts, the Lady Sharks competed at a high level and won going away, 49-13.
“I’ve never had a team that is more like a family in my 20 years of coaching. Everyone is very close, so when this happened everyone pulled for each other,” Coach Andy Meyer said. “I told them that they have to be there for each other on the court and off the court.
“I was worried about their lack of focus for tonight’s game. But they did a good job of putting the tragedy aside momentarily and focusing on the game. Afterwards, they were able to be there for each other.”
Ross’ father, Rick, coached most of the girls when they were in youth basketball as fifth- and sixth-graders. Malibu (10-9, 3-4) played inspired basketball with an enormous amount of pride as they won for the 10th time this season. The Lady Shark’s win total has already surpassed the last two seasons combined.
“We worked well together as a team under tough circumstances,” junior forward Nina Hungerland said. “It showed how far we’ve come and grown together as a team.”
After surrendering the game’s first basket on the opening possession to Grace Brethren, Malibu shutout the Lancers for the rest of the first quarter taking a 10-2 lead. Gianna Chaisson’s three-pointer started the run and a nice drop-step layup by Sara Joshi capped off the 10-0 spurt by the Lady Sharks.
Leading 15-6 in the second quarter, Malibu executed its zone offense to perfection, capitalizing upon five crisp passes that resulted in a bank shot basket by Kendall Jordan. A subsequent steal off the press by Chaisson (eight points, three steals), who then made a nifty wrap-around pass to a trailing Hungerland for a layup, made it 19-6.
Hungerland (eight points, four blocks) later knocked down a baseline jumper to give the Lady Sharks a commanding 21-6 lead into halftime. Six players scored in the first half for Malibu.
Malibu blew the game wide open with a 17-0 run to begin the third quarter for an insurmountable 38-6 advantage. Jordan scored seven of her game-high 11 points in the period as seven different Sharks found the basket.
With a 47-7 score to begin the final period, the fourth quarter was played with a running clock.
Inspired by Ross’ presence at the game, six Malibu players scored five or more points as the Lady Sharks played their most complete game of the season and in doing so won their second consecutive contest.
“Today was so great,” Joshi said. “Last year we lost to this team so we came in wanting to win. We gave it our best and left it all on the court today.”
The convincing win came on the heels of a significant victory two days earlier when Malibu upset first place Foothill Tech, 43-37.
In a tightly contested game, the Lady Sharks prevailed after Jordan and Chaisson each made two key free throws in the final minute. Jordan finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds; Chaisson added 12 points and nine rebounds; Hungerland chipped in with nine points and Hannah Hunter and Ana Cervantes each had eight rebounds.
“That was huge for us. They were unbeaten in league and we had already played a couple of tough games in league,” said Meyer. “It was one of our better games of the year. We played good defense, our offense worked well, we broke the press and everything came together. Hopefully it’s a start of a good streak for the second half of the season.”
“Last year we were not as good as a team as we are now,” said Joshi. “We’ve made so much progress.”
After the Grace Brethren victory, hugs and tears were plentiful for Ross and her teammates. In the toughest of times, love and family prevails. The Lady Sharks are proof of that.