The American River College women’s basketball team won its first game against Gavilan Junior College on Nov. 19, during their first game on the home court.

That brought the team to 1-2 overall on the season. 

“We were finally able to play at home, we have been practicing here since August,” said J.R. Matsunami, ARC women’s basketball head coach. “One of my starting players, yesterday, was here mopping the floor, and it’s when they take ownership like this that there is more pride involved playing on this court.”

Several two-point field goals from freshman Tamai Mancuso, who scored the highest number of points, and good defensive plays brought ARC up by 18 points over GJC by the end of the first half.

ARC’s defense played a fundamental role in this game. Looking at the statistics, ARC collectively had 24 defensive rebounds, with good performances by Adia Williams and Aries Younger, with eight defensive rebounds each. ARC also had a high number of steals, 15 against the five accomplished by GJC.

“Our defensive effort was good and our defense created our offense, so we are able to get more points than we had in the first two games,” Matsunami said.

On the offensive side of the court, ARC worked together to get to the hoop. Freshman Hailey Karpel achieved the highest number of assists during the game, with six of them, and Adia Williams had five. 

After half time, the Beavers didn’t show any signs of fatigue or distraction, they were ready to take the game home. 

“Today was more about sportsmanship,” Younger said. “We swung the ball and we ran through the plays, we usually just throw up threes automatically, but today we took our time.” 

They were focused trying to avoid wasting the possession of the ball in order to build every single play following a plan or coach’s directions.

By the end of the game, ARC’s players had 12 personal fouls over the 14 personal fouls by GJC.

Overall, it was a good performance by the Beavers, with teamwork as the winning key of the game.

“The next game is gonna be a tough team, but I feel like we do better against tough teams, we usually play at their level,” Younger said. “I think we will have fun.” 

After losing two games in a row against Laney and San Jose, ARC will face Merritt College on Dec. 1 at 6 p.m. at home.