Light the wall: McClatchy beams in blowout of St. Francis; faces top-ranked Folsom next
The McClatchy Lions are in the spirit of all things basketball fun, so much so that they have borrowed a tactic from the Sacramento Kings.
But this Lions group doesn’t light a beam to punctuate triumph. They light up an entire wall with school-color red.
The tradition started just this week at the Sacramento City Unified School campus, the brainchild of Lions assistant coach Carlos Vicenty and promoted with all manner of pride and gusto by the school’s athletic director, Rob Feickert.
After McClatchy played its best half of the season in jumping all over a sound St. Francis team Thursday night en route to a 74-36 victory in a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I girls quarterfinal, there was Feickert, working the crowd. He urged players, coaches, alums and students who filled a large section of bleachers to hustle outside for the light action on the side of the building.
“That’s so cool,” said McClatchy senior guard and energizer Tamaria Rumph. “It’s fun. I don’t know if any other schools light a wall.”
The Lions are worthy of all the bells and whistles and big crowds. McClatchy at 25-5 and the No. 4 seed in a strong D-I field is a team worth watching and appreciating. It is a group that plays hard on defense, shares the ball and sends in waves of players to get after teams with the intent to exhaust them with pressure.
It starts with Rumph. She’s a 5-foot-4 ball of energy, smooth with the dribble, clever with the pass and a pest with on-ball defense in leading the charge for a program that has become a section powerhouse the last two decades. The reminder is the large banner on the wall honoring the 2015 CIF state D-I championship team, coached by Jessica Kunisaki, now an assistant to head coach Jeff Ota, who was her assistant in 2015. Both are McClatchy graduates, as is another assistant coach in Jackie Wada.
Rumph is headed to Morgan State on scholarship to study business management and to play ball the only way she knows how — fast and a bit faster. Rumph can hardly wait, but she has more games in Lions colors to deal with
“She gets us going,” Ota said.
This is how McClatchy super sophomore forward Nina Cain described the team’s floor leader, “Tamaria’s an initiator on offense. Very quick, very skilled, great handles, makes great assists. She throws dimes.”
Rumph had 13 points, six steals and a handful of assists, some of the highlight variety. Cain had 25 on a variety of shots to lead all scorers in a meeting of traditional powers and 2023 league champions. She also had 12 rebounds and four steals. Sophomore guard/forward Norret Lewis had 15, and a host of other Lions contributed with defense, points and/or effort. This lot included: twin-sister guards Sydney and Alia Wilson, guard/wings Sianna Squires, Deniyah Brown, Milah Masters and sisters Kaela and Laila Stancil-Williams.
McClatchy players helped one another up after taking a spill and bench players cheered backups who made good plays. In short: a team united and coming into its own in a hurry. The Lions used their vaunted press to ignite a 14-0 start out of the gates. It was 21-2 after the first quarter, 41-5 in the mid second and 52-12 at the half. McClatchy won its 11th consecutive game and rolled into a semifinal showdown Tuesday at top-seeded Folsom, which beat Lincoln of Stockton 60-37 in another quarterfinal to move to 23-2.
St. Francis came in at 23-4 and winners of the Delta League under coach Brittany Woodard, but the Troubadours were undone by a suffocating defense and a determined bunch. Their 10-game winning streak met an emphatic end. Briana McGahan, the Troubadours’ steady junior guard, led her team with 15 points. She praised McClatchy’s defensive effort.
“Their press, their defense, they just got us, and they’re long and they’re fast,” she said. “Really good team.”
St. Francis is as well, and the Troubadours have a shot to gain a CIF Northern California at-large bid. But they will have to wait until Feb. 26 to find out. That’s the day the CIF will announce regional brackets.
McClatchy likes its chances to compete with a Folsom juggernaut that has not lost to a section team this season. Folsom beat McClatchy 84-43 early last season in a tournament — “They killed us,” Ota, the Lions coach recalled — but the rematch figures to be a great deal tighter. Especially if Rumph and company play like they did against St. Francis. Rumph did not play in that Folsom contest, but she’ll lead the way on Tuesday.
She prides herself in leading the show.
“I draw defenses when I drive and try to get everyone involved,” Rumph said. “Defense is where it starts for us. It helps our offense.”
Rumph wants to become a business woman after college graduation. She’s especially into fashion and shoes. She has a closet full of footwear, 60 pairs at least, and she already knows she will have to be clever in packing boxes of shoes for her college journey.
“I’ll bring at least 20 pairs, and I’ll stuff them into my dorm,” she said with a laugh. “I need to have them.”
First, though, the Lions need one more win to reach the section finals. The Lions are already assured of a NorCal D-I playoff berth. A win over Folsom would really make their season one to remember.
This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 7:26 AM.