At the start of the Pitman Varsity Boys’ Basketball season, Coach Harvey Marable had high expectations for the team. His bold expectations were to win a CCC title and to make the playoffs for the 6th straight year. A team with three seniors and twelve juniors: a team full of inexperience at the varsity level. In the opinion of many players, it was a tough road but not out of reach of our attainability. The team was ready to fight, but we really weren’t such a small and under matched team. From the beginning of the season, Coach Marable embedded into our heads that we will have to play defense in order to stay in the games, actually we needed to play defense to win games. Let me tell you, the way we worked to be as good as we were on defense, left some teams in awe.
Reading all the local newspapers coming into the season had Pitman in second to last place in the conference standings. No one gave the Pitman boys a chance; it was either second to none against our cross- town rival Turlock. The favorite to win the CCC conference was the powerhouse Golden Valley, but when you’re a favorite to win, you’re always the team with a bull’s eye on your back. At least that’s the way the Pitman boys looked at it; we thought we had a chance to contend for a conference title, which we did. We were the team that could go under the radar; the team that gets no respect from anyone to pull up to the top.
The Pride started off slow, losing three of their first five games. The team failed to show their identity which was defense, but it would soon be shown in a crucial game. In the game following the Modesto Classic Tournament against Sonora, the Pride stamped their name with their trade mark defensive effort against the Sonora Wildcats, holding them to three points in the third quarter, which was decisive because the Pride only won by four. In the next seven games, the Pride struggled, playing in the Turlock Godinez Tournament and the Ceres Holiday Tournament. Out of the two tournaments we played seven games; we won two games, both times beating the same team Beyer High. The Pride struggles their way into league with a 4-8 record.
Our first league game was against the scrappy Merced Bears. We came out firing and with energy, finally beating the Bears at their home. In the next game, we played the Atwater Falcons at Home; the Pride went on a run and never looked back afterwards. After the first two games, the Pride started off 2-0 in league. After starting 2-0 in league, the team thought that’s where we should be thus far. But in the next three games, the team had their heads in the clouds losing the next three games to finish the first round 2-3. At the start of the second round, we beat the Bears of Merced once again but losing to the very weak Atwater Falcons which was very disappointing and degrading. Following the loss to the Falcons, the team was in a state of disarray but Coach Marable stated, “We just have to move on.” After losing to the Falcons, the Pride finished 1-2 for the rest of the second round. Our conference record at the time was 4-6, which landed us in third place. In the last round of the conference, they struggled to find a win although they only won one game out of the five in the final round.
The story of our season was that the Pride was a team of youth and inexperience. That was the one and only downfall of our season: we could not finish the games. But the returning players got so much experience which will benefit in the next season. The expectations will be high for the next year’s Pitman boys’ varsity team.
