Rams Women’s Basketball Team Knocks Renegades Aside with 70-36 Win

by Brett Abel
babel2@mail.ccsf.edu

A dominant home win over Ohlone College extended the Rams women’s basketball team’s undefeated streak in the conference while setting up a showdown with the other Coast Conference leader, Chabot College.

City College’s 70-36 drubbing of Ohlone (4-13 overall, 1-3 in conference) on Friday, Jan. 17, boosted the Rams’ record to 3-0 in the Coast and 11-8 overall.

It was the fourth straight win for City College and a promising prelude to the Chabot College matchup on Friday, Jan. 24, who also had 11 wins and was 3-0 in the conference.

“Chabot is way better than… Who’d we play?” freshman guard Alessandra Nelson asked after the game to teammate Madison Thomas.

Sophomore forward Thomas and Nelson combined to outscore the Renegades 37-36, with a game-high 19 and 18 points, respectively.

“I’m sighing of relief, keeping our four-game win streak,” said Thomas, who also had seven rebounds, four assists and two steals.

Although the game ended as a blowout, it didn’t start that way.

“It took a lot to get going. We didn’t get going as fast as I’d like to,” Coach Derek Lau said. “There was a lack of focus. We want to be crisp and clean.”

Despite a 17-8 lead after the first quarter, the Renegades started the second quarter with a short burst, before the Rams surged back to finish the half leading 31-18.

But after his team committed six turnovers and a foul in the 5:20 of the second half, Lau called a timeout and got the Rams focused on fundamentals.

He also reintroduced sophomore guard Zakai McAlister into the game.

“We needed energy and I came in knowing that,” she said. “I focus on defense, steals, the dirty work and let the scorers finish.”

McAlister scored 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds, seven on defense.

“Ultimately we can learn from this game,” she said. “We start off in the first quarter – there’s no quarter when we can slack off.”

After that third quarter time out with the score 37-25, the Rams scored 33 more and limited the Renegades to 11.

The City College defense held Ohlone’s 5-foot-10 sophomore guard/forward Thadar Set eight points on 3-16 field goals and forced her into seven turnovers – the Renegades as a team had 22.

Set did, however, come down with 15 rebounds and had three assists and steals with four blocks. And she had help from another reserve who came up big in the match.

Freshman guard Tia Stevenson scored a team-high 15 points, shooting 6-12, and had five steals, an assists, and two blocks, rebounds and turnovers.

The four-game win streak includes winning five of six after a December-to-forget when the Rams went 2-6 despite a strong start in November.

“We’ve got to be strong, push, sustain. We’ve got to play how we play,” McAlister said. “We have a lot more to show as a team as games move forward.”

Editor’s note:
The Rams pushed their win streak one game further on Friday, Jan. 24 when they swept Chabot College with a 57-41 win.