Showdown between Folsom and Laguna Creek shows girls’ basketball is better than ever
When it was over, when the region’s top-ranked high school girls’ basketball team was done putting on a clinic against the No. 2-ranked bunch, the winning coach was dazed.
Couldn’t wipe the grin off his face or stop nodding. Lynn Wolking has seen his Folsom Bulldogs come of age in a flash, and he came away supremely impressed Friday night while exiting the Laguna Creek gym. He wasn’t the only one. I was doing a bit of “wow” myself after watching teams sporting 7-0 records square off in a nonleague showdown in a full gym that included a rooting section, cheerleaders and a lot of media coverage. This isn’t the norm for girls’ athletics, but it should be, especially if the product is this appealing.
The Bulldogs and the Cardinals of Laguna Creek are worth a watch if you’re into hoops, or even if you’re just into anything sporty and where effort, fundamentals and cohesion matter. Both of these clubs are superbly coached. They are fundamental, fast and fun. They both leave me to conclude that basketball is in good hands this winter. Folsom won 98-59 and left a lot of people to wonder how good the Bulldogs can be while also concluding that Laguna Creek has the makings of its best team. How far can these two go?
My quick assessment: A long way, as in March, where only the best teams are left standing competing for Northern California championships. What’s a prep season without a powerhouse to behold to root for or against? This is it. Both are it.
“We have great chemistry, no egos, a lot of talent,” Wolking said in sizing up his team. “It’ a wonderful thing.”
The coach said “a wonderful thing” several times, and we agreed. Girls’ basketball has been a wonderful thing locally for decades, and it hasn’t slowed down. It keeps climbing. There are more good teams because there are more year-round players, making for more skill than ever before. And the bulk of the regional powers have been public schools unlike other parts of the state. The trailblazers were the Davis teams of the mid 1970s, then the Colfax and Grant teams of the ‘80s, then Bear River, Del Campo and El Camino of the 1990s, then Oak Ridge, Kennedy and McClatchy of the 2000s and 2010s, and, more recently, the Sacramento, West Campus and Antelope teams.
Folsom and Laguna Creek may not stand as all-time elite right now, but time will tell that story because championships end a lot of debates. But these programs are the next great thing, of today and now.
Building a program
Elite wasn’t always the case for these programs. Laguna Creek won Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championships in 2003 and ‘04 but hit rock bottom eight years ago, at the start of coach Cody Norman’s coaching career, limping home with three- and four-win seasons. He turned things around with eight freshmen, now all of them seniors, including seasons of 26 and 28 wins. A high basketball IQ and the will and skill of four-year varsity starters Zoe Tillery and Tulsa-bound guard Ahrray Young elevated the program.
Wolking can also appreciate the rise from the depths of a cellar. In his early Folsom coaching years, 12, 11 and 10 seasons ago, Folsom went a combined 1-29 in league play. It wasn’t uncommon for a player to bug out of a game on a Friday to attend a birthday party. Basketball then wasn’t a passion for many. It was just something to do. Now? It’s a passion and the thing to do for both programs.
“We lost a game to St. Francis early in my career 81-9, and our post player was at a concert,” Wolking said. “Now everyone’s into it. Year-round play, all that skill. I told the girls before the game in the locker room that it won’t just be Laguna Creek fans here and Folsom fans here. There will be a lot of people here to see great basketball. Doesn’t matter that it’s girls. It’s great ball. It’s a wonderful thing.”
A high-caliber girls game
Among the Friday viewers were Todd Reiswig and CIF Director Ron Nocetti, the head of the state’s high school governing body based in Sacramento. Nocetti was on hand because he’s a fan of athletics. He was on hand a week after watching Folsom compete for a CIF State championship in football in Mission Viejo.
“What a great atmosphere here,” Nocetti marveled.
Reiswig is a basketball lifer, the coach of the Elk Grove High boys’ team that won the 1995 Division I section championship. He now studies girls’ games as a member of the CIF Northern California playoff seeding committee, and he is the assistant director of the CIF State finals at Golden 1 Center. But mostly, there is this: Reiswig is a fan of good basketball.
After Folsom executed an inside, outside and then inside finish for a play, Reiswig leaned back in his seat, eyebrows and hands raised and exhaled, “Oh, that’s so good! So good!” A moment later, he saw Folsom freshman do-all guard Ava Rawlins drive the baseline hard with her right hand and then finish with her left.
“Beautiful job! Wow!” Reiswig said.
“The skill level for girls’ basketball 20 or 25 years ago wasn’t what it is now,” Reiswig said. “I’m so impressed. Girls here can pass it, shoot it, drive. Look at their execution. It’s exciting basketball. I used to think volleyball was the it sport for girls, watching my daughter (Annie) play in high school and at Miami of Ohio in college, and that’s a great sport. But girls’ basketball has got me swaying my thinking.”
Reiswig added after Folsom hit a barrage of 3’s and Laguna Creek counter with dribble-drive plays, “If you haven’t seen a high-caliber girls game, you’re missing out.”
On the opposite corner of the gym sat Robert Fong, an All-Metro guard in the 1970s at Kennedy who coached boys basketball for 25 years at his alma mater. He’s a hoops lifer, too. He coaches girls youth ball with an emphasis on skill and fun.
“I coach girls like I coached the guys, and they appreciate it,” Fong said. “I just saw a girl here with a cross over, step-back jumper. Wow. They all have skill. You can’t rest on Folsom. They have so many girls who can do so many things, and they have a coach who lets them play. I mean, 51 points at the half for Folsom against a really good team? That’s incredible. This is how girls want to play.”
Fong paused and added, “I used to hate watching girls’ basketball. It was like molasses or paint dry. Not these teams.”
‘We’re athletes’
Folsom has five players who are averaging double figures in scoring, and the roster includes at least nine who are capable of doing so. Senior guard Makayla Jackson and 6-foot junior wing Charlotte Climenhage led all scorers Friday with 21 points. Climenhage hit four first-half 3-pointers. Jackson did a little of everything. Sophomore guard Ella Uriarte had 16, freshman guard Dewayne Makihele had nine. Rawlins, the other impressive freshman, is already drawing national recruiting interest. This team isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
The goal, of course, is to win the Sierra Foothill League, a race that includes longtime powerhouse and rival Oak Ridge of El Dorado Hills. Then it’ll be onto the section playoffs in February, where national superpower St. Mary’s of Stockton looms, winners of a record 21 section crowns and, in the past 20 seasons, eight CIF State banners. It took the remarkable efforts and skill of Mckenzie Forbes to all but single-handedly elevate Folsom basketball in recent years. She is now a sophomore guard at Harvard. As good as she was, an all-time regional great, this Folsom team is overall better than any of the four she played on.
Current Folsom players grew up marveling at the skill and fun of Forbes. Said Folsom guard Rose, “We have a lot of potential. It’s super exciting.”
Worth a watch?
“Oh, definitely,” she said, smiling. “We’re not just female athletes. We’re athletes, and we’re talented and skilled.”
Rose said she admires her brother Malik Rose, a former star player on the Folsom boys’ basketball team. Listen up, good brother. Keep watching your sister and her mates, too. The Folsom girls may be the best hoops thing going this winter, Kings on down.
This story was originally published December 18, 2021 at 6:29 AM.