GILROY — The scoreboard may not have reflected it, but the Christopher girls basketball team walked away winners on Thursday evening.
The Cougars lost to Monte Vista Christian, 47-38, but the real victory was achieving their preseason dream of “paying it forward.” The two teams played not just for a win or loss, but to help Rebekah Children’s Services in any way they could.
“I feel like it was a success in terms of the charity and everything — that’s what this game was really aimed for,” senior and co-creator of the event Cydney Caradonna said. “I’m just happy we had a good enough crowd. We sold a lot of the stuff that both teams made and we just really got the word out about Rebekah Children’s Home (Services) and that’s what really counted tonight.”
The game was the brain child of Caradonna and senior teammate Dejah Raoof who approached their coach, Heather Stewart, before the season with an idea to leave their marks on the program. After some brainstorming, the duo decided that Rebekah would be a perfect local charity to help.
Both teams made baked good and items like scarfs and bracelets that were on sale at the game. Monte Vista Christian’s coach Jennifer Keathsley also designed t-shirts that read “2 teams, one cause” that both teams purchased as their monetary contribution to Rebekah. Money from concessions and admission was also donated to the charity.
“Everybody had a hand in it tonight,” Stewart said. “It’s great to see a lot of the facility here from Christopher High. We saw a lot of teachers and Mrs. (Patricia) Jolly our principal came by. We had a good turnout.”
Players from both teams bonded over summer playing with each other on club teams. They further bonded on a dual trip to the Warriors game, allowing friendships to blossom.
But that may have been part of the cause of their sloppy play in the game.
The Cougars had several turnovers in the game, including passing the ball to MVC players — which was very uncharacteristic for CHS. Caradonna and Raoof both said it was “weird” to play against their friends and learning to be friends off the court and enemies on it may have been a tough concept for some to grasp.
“I don’t think my team knew we were in white tonight,” Caradonna laughed. “It’s just things like that, not finishing our shots. We had a few primary players just off tonight and I think those were definitely some factors.”
Caradonna led all scorers with 18 points in the game.
After trailing for most of the second quarter, the Cougars rallied, scoring eight unanswered points to take a 21-20 lead into the half — thanks to a putback at the buzzer by Raoof.
“I didn’t want to go out into halftime down — that was my goal,” Raoof said. “I was like ‘I’m not going to be down by halftime’. I know in me it’s just a fight and I know a lot of people had that fight that was playing — even the bench.”
Raoof had 11 points, including going 5 for 8 from the line.
The third quarter, however, was a struggle for the home team, just as it had been all season. Stewart said despite different line-ups and strategies, her team just can’t seem to put the ball in the basket and consquently allowed MVC to go up by nine points heading into the final frame.
Both teams posted 11 points in the fourth, but the it wasn’t enough for the Cougars to erase the third quarter damage.
Christopher (10-11 overall, 5-5 in league) has just two games left in the regular season, including a 7 p.m. contest tonight at Salinas. The Cougars must win both if they want to see the postseason.
“We have to win,” Stewart said. “At this point we have to win both games and ultimatley that’s the goal. We were hoping to get this one tonight, but again — uncharacteristicly — the amount of turnovers hurt us. We didn’t know where our head was tonight.”
