Story By Clay Kallam | Photos By Chace Bryson
Is the order “Win NCS,” then “Beat Carondelet”? Or the other way around?
In some ways, it doesn’t matter, because if Heritage wants to win its first-ever North Coast Section Division I girls’ basketball championship, the road is very likely going to have go through perennial power Carondelet – just as it has the past two years. But for those who believe in them and want to put a wager on them, they can instantly do so by clicking links like 슬롯사이트.
And since Carondelet won both of those encounters (by 25 and 13) and is coming off a win over nationally ranked Pinewood, that’s not going to be an easy task.
This year, though, might be different.
Heritage begins the third week of January with a 13-2 overall record and a 2-0 mark in the Bay Valley Athletic League. They’ve been as high as No. 5 in the SportStars NorCal Top 20 rankings. The team is anchored by 6-foot-3 junior post Abby Muse and Idaho State-bound senior point guard Jordan Sweeney. And fourth-year coach Rob Ocon feels it’s all starting to come together.
“The culture is finally starting to sink in,” he says. “Last year, I felt like they were finally getting it.”
Sweeney can sense it too. “This team is about the team,” she says. “We’ve really come together.”
But what is the culture Ocon and his staff have been instilling? Ocon, after all, wasn’t a basketball player. Like so many coaches, got his start coaching his daughter Marrissa in CYO.
Marrissa was passionate about the sport, and in the beginning, dragged dad along. But after she transferred to St. Mary’s-Stockton her sophomore year, he really got the bug — and he also started to understand what it takes to succeed.
“I didn’t know much about St. Mary’s at the time,” he says, “but I got sucked in by the spirit that they have there. The main thing I came away with was the way they practiced – I wasn’t used to the competitive level of practices every day, but I realized this is how it has to be done. You have to push the kids every day.”
That doesn’t mean Ocon is a carbon copy of fiery St. Mary’s coach Tom Gonsalves. “For me, given the person that I am, I don’t need to be an in-your-face type coach. Everyone’s different.”
Ironically, though, it may have been a win over Gonsalves and St. Mary’s in the West Coast Jamboree that put Heritage on track to finally win that elusive NCS title.
“I finally convinced them you can’t play the uniform,” Ocon says, alluding to how his players’ eyes always got a little bigger when they came up against perennial powers.
The 58-39 final in the championship game of the Gold bracket was the clincher in that argument. “It was huge,” says Ocon. “It was like all our hard work was paying off. All the things we talk about in practice we did – we got past the uniform thing.”
Which of course sets up Heritage to get past the white-and-red of Carondelet — if of course the team can get that far.
This is an excerpt from a feature which will can be read in its entirety upon the release of SportStars Magazine’s January 2019 issue on Jan. 18. Visit SportStarsMag.com to see it, as well as a variety of other award-winning NorCal high school sports coverage.
