Cell phone ban brings girls basketball team closer, turns season into run at California state title
By Nicole Comstock, Dean Fioresi
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SIERRA VISTA, California (KCAL, KCBS) — An unlikely run at the California state title has put the Sierra Vista High School Dons girls’ basketball team’s cell phone ban in the spotlight, which they say has not only brought them closer but also helped them dominate their competition.
Head coach Sandra Duckering says that the decision has “made a world of difference” since losing 11 of their first 15 games to start the season.
She says that she believes the Dons kept losing games because they were making TikToks, texting and scrolling social media instead of being present with each other.
“The one thing I noticed is: we were super disconnected,” Duckering said.
From then on, she has confiscated each of the girls’ phones before each practice and game, separating them from their lives outside of basketball to focus on what is now their best season in school history.
She collects the phones in a bucket every day, centering the girls’ attention on their team.
“Once they connected, we got flow. It was just amazing,” she said. “Their game changed. Their bond changed.”
The Dons then began winning games by monstrous scores on their way to SVHS’s first CIF Southern Section Championship and trip to Bakersfield on Tuesday, where they’re taking part in the school’s first-ever State Championship playoff game.
“We’ve been ranked lower, so we’re kind of like the underdogs in this story,” said Cailei Buna, the team’s point guard. “We took that in a way to show the underdogs shouldn’t be slept on.”
On Feb. 18, they scored a season-high 71 points in a playoff matchup, just two games after dominating another opponent 68-7. They’re 14-2 after their rough start to the year, and are averaging nearly 58 points per game.
The team says that the phone ban freed up their attention so that they could focus on working together as a team.
“Before we would argue a lot,” said Mareessa Navarro. “We would have this distance.”
Now, they work hard not just for themselves, but for each other.
“Talking with each other as a team, just being with each other, I think that really got us close, and we’ve just been working hard,” said Evanna Malloy.
They say that hard work pays off, thanks to a simple drop in the bucket.
“I wanna be able to come home with another championship if we can,” said Alyssa Winlock. I wanna work hard. I know my teammates wanna work hard, so we need to hustle and push with everything we have.”
The Dons have to win just four more games to become the state champions. Their first game, against the Foothill High School Trojans, was an unfortunate 55-45 loss, ending their season.
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