On  Jan 11, Fresno City College women’s basketball team took a 124- 58 victory against Taft College, adding to their two game winning streak. FCC is now 16-6 and ranked second in the Central Valley Conference.

Head coach Brian Tessler said he is optimistic about the rest of the season, but the team must get better defensively.

“I’m never confident going into a game, and that just me, I am never confident regardless of our streak or opponent.,” Tessler said.

The Rams, although scattered defensively, had a strong offense from the beginning. In the first eight minutes, City scored the first 8 points of the game that kept Taft off the scoreboard for half the quarter.

Toward the end of the quarter, Taft’s defense started coming together, but the team still lacked strength on offense. The Rams continued to struggle with transitioning from offense to defense, thus Taft continued to gain momentum.

At the start of the second quarter, both teams started to move the ball better, which pushed them to work smarter and harder. A majority of the points were the result of turnovers, but the Rams ultimately came out on top, ending the first half with a 67-30 lead.

Freshman forward Madissen Waterford-Harp said confidence, intensity and tempo of the game contributed in the overall improvement of the team’s ball-handling in the second half. “Taft didn’t have much depth offensively, but we had a greater depth of offensive threats on our team,” she said.

“Our biggest obstacle going into this game was being able to jump into our defense and press a little quicker,” Harp said. “We let some easy baskets early on, but when you’re a team that presses and traps, it’s bound to happen.”

At the start of the second half, the Rams came back strong in both defense and offence. FCC had nine three pointers in the second half of the game. The team started experiencing success scoring while in transition. Their confidence went up, ball-handling got better and scoring opportunities opened up for the Rams.  

Sophomore guard Taylor Martin said the lack of grittiness and toughness on some plays was one drawback in the game.

“We gave up some offensive rebounds and didn’t dive for loose balls. We definitely gave them way too many cheap plays and points,” Martin said. “No excuses, we just have to hold them to less the next game.”