Analysis: CHS girls deserve credit

BY MIKE HOUSER

Appeal Sports Writer

I'm not a big fan of the direction sports journalism is headed. Every sports writer has an opinion, which means there's not much separating him or her from the average fan.

For me, the no-fly zone begins with writing a blog.

When a beat writer is covering a pro or college team, he or she should write an objective game story, free of all opinion or bias. Then there's a sidebar/notebook, which should follow the same rule of objectivity.

And finally, there is room for a column, which is a place for individual commentary on issues relating to the team, coach, fans, whatever.

There's a fine line between a blog and a column. With pro and college sports - when written properly - a blog is fine.

When covering high school sports for a community paper, there is no room for a blog. No sports writer is going to beat a coach when it comes to Xs and Os. As soon as you cover a team - in this case, Carson High School sports - and you begin inundating the community with your opinion, your objectivity is gone and you lose all credibility.

All of this brings me to the point of this column: There are exceptions.

It's never going to be a habit for me as long as I cover high school sports, but it is time to lower my gates of objectivity and share with you something from the heart.

All season long, as the Carson girls basketball team fought their way through a tough year, I resisted my impulses to write something personal about the 12 girls and their first-year coach Todd Ackerman.

Like most everyone else in the area, I had high - and realistic - hopes for the team coming into this season. But with coach Ric Garcia retiring, 6-foot sophomore center Danielle Peacon transferring to Reed and almost all the rest of the squad choosing not to return for one reason or another, this team may as well have been given a blindfold and a cigarette.

The Senators had only three girls coming back with any varsity experience and one of them - junior center Cassie Vondrak - missed the beginning of the season with an injury.

One of the others, senior Christy Works, had played varsity ball as a sophomore but sat out last season and acted as the team's manager.

The final returner, sophomore guard Gina Bianchi, played varsity ball as a freshman.

This left Ackerman, a former boys coach at Lovelock and an assistant coach under Werner Christen at Douglas, to drop his position as Carson's track coach and take a job where he was guaranteed to take his lumps.

And to Work's, Bianchi's and Vondrak's credit, they elected to come play for a team that had little or no shot of winning a significant amount of games.

So did nine other girls, all of whom chose to play basketball for the fun of it and at the same time brought with them a great competitive spirit.

Works, as the only senior, assumed the leadership role and led the rest of the team with her boundless energy and hard-nosed play. Bianchi grew up quick and, after a 29-point effort in a close loss to Douglas, showed she was no one-game wonder.

Bianchi had some help on the wing from sophomore Yvonne Hollett, who scored in double figures and led the team in scoring several times. Junior guard Krista Mattice worked her way into a starting role and showed the ability to hit 3-pointers, as did unsung freshman Elayna Shine.

Junior Belen Munoz and sophomore Emily Field both saw some playing time as well in the frontcourt.

The 5-11 Vondrak supplied a welcome presence in the post, where she was spelled by up-and-coming sophomore Tiandra Hudson, who began to see more time as the season progressed.

Junior forward Breanna Anderson also increasingly contributed as the season moved along and sophomore Natalie Morrow and junior forward Tiffany O'Day both gained some valuable experience should they return next year.

Carson finished 3-11 in the Sierra League, having several close losses, and ended up 6-23 overall. But this team should not be judged by its record.

"I told them with us not going to the playoffs, they could lay down or come out and play hard and get a few wins," Ackerman said after his team was eliminated from postseason play with a little over a week to go. "Their last week, they elected to come out and play hard. They worked hard in practice and came in good spirits.

"They put up with me and came to the gym and games and worked hard and wanted to win and compete."

And that willingness to work hard and compete was never more obvious than in their 47-45 loss to the Tigers on Jan. 14.

I know the line by now: When Carson and Douglas meet you can throw out the records.

But having seen the Senators struggle early in the season with their defense, ball handling, passing game and turnovers - not to mention putting the ball in the hoop - I didn't give them much of a chance to even be in the game with the Tigers.

What I saw that night was the most inspiring performance by any high school team I've covered in the last seven years.

Ackerman never tried to have his team stall to hold down its opponents' scores. He elected to teach his players to attack and forced them to learn.

And against Douglas, they responded incredibly. That story was hard to write with objectivity, but I believe I pulled it off. It was no less thrilling to me than watching an underdog boxer fight his heart out and nearly upset the champion.

I've never felt that way as a writer before or since.

I'll be sure and stay in my seat next season as well, when I think Carson will show a lot of teams that the window to kick sand in their faces has closed.

"Next year we'll have more young kids step up and fill spots," Ackerman said. "Whoever comes back will have a little more experience under their belt. They won't be put in the same spot as they were this year. There will be quite a few players with varsity experience instead of just three."

If you don't follow the team and you've got this far, go back and re-read each of those 12 girls' names. Their school and, by extension, community needed them this year and they all stepped up in a big way.

And take a minute to thank Ackerman, who rose to the challenge as a coach and branded this team with his fiery personality and will to compete.

It's easy to remember the winners. But for as long as I write, I'll always hold a special place for this year's squad, which showed that it is all about how you play the game.