York Basket Ball Team Takes On Double Header
By Tylaisha Davis
York College Women’s Basketball team played against New Jersey City University basketball team, “The Gothic Knights” on Nov. 15.
The women’s basketball game started at exactly 6:30 p.m. in York’s gymnasium. The starting five for the “Lady Cardinals” were Junior Forward Juliet Matthews, Freshman Guard Rafaella Savva, Junior Guard/Forward Evanda Redwood, Sophomore Forward Shanice Cadogan, and Junior Forward Mayan Charles. By the end of first quarter, New Jersey led the game 15 to 13. This would be as close as the “Lady Cardinals” would get to closing the gap.
The second quarter quickly took a turn for the worse for York’s Lady Cardinals because of turnovers, fouls on the other team, and missed shots. Ending second quarter score with 19 to 31, leaving the home team down by 12.
During the third quarter the Cardinals were not able to catch up. With 6:57 left, Freshman Allison Ahmed whose position on the team is a center got injured.
“I got hurt when I tried to steal the ball,” said Ahmed. “The player ran into my leg, I felt my knee pop and after that I just fell to the floor.”
Ahmed hopes to return to the court soon and work on achieving her main goal which is to win the CUNY championship. The third quarter ended with the score at 22 to 51.
The final score was 30 to 68 York lady Cardinals losing by 38 points. Former basketball player for the lady Cardinals Shauncia McClendon sees great potential for the team and thinks they definitely have a chance at the CUNY championship.
“It was a lot of potential there, you can tell it’s a new team pretty much of freshman either a transfer student or new to college basketball,” she said. “The girls are aggressive you need that and this year they have a bigger presence in the post so they just need time to develop their game and chemistry. I think Coach Ron’s plan is improvement. Every coach of course wants to win but he would rather see his girls grow and improve. He has a freshman team, so this is his building year he has a chance to develop his girls and build so next year they can be a solid team.”
This is Ronald James’ second year as Women’s basketball head coach. To help him along this season, he has Chiquita Greene and Jigcara Grant as his Assistant Coaches. Jigcara Grant played on the lady Cardinals team for two years she led the nation in rebounding per game. Grant feels the game was a learning experience and to not worry about the past.
“The game was a season opener, we know we did some things wrong we are just going to correct it, this is only the beginning,” Grant said, adding that believes the goal is to win the next game.
After the opening game defeat, with mostly freshman on the team, people are excited to see how this team will develop and how the season will turn out for them.
