There was a lot to look forward to this season after the St. Francis High boys’ basketball team was coming off a Pacific Coast Athletic League Cypress Division title run.
The reward was a jump to compete in the more challenging Mission Division.
League action began this week but the Sharks are already swimming into cold, uncharted waters by starting the 2023-24 campaign with a 1-10 overall record.
Senior guard Joseph Rose scored a team-best 27 points for St. Francis in a 63-41 loss to Alisal in the Mission Division opener on Thursday evening, dropping to 0-1 in league play.
There are many factors that suggest this young team, which is suddenly facing imposing competition, has a much higher ceiling than their record indicates.
“I have a very inexperienced team,” Sharks head coach Duncan Edwards said. “It’s not where I thought we’d be but it’s where we are. We’re learning and getting better. We played a much tougher [preseason] schedule this year than we played last year.”
The Sharks won the Cypress Division with a 12-2 record in league play in 2022-23. They beat out teams such as North Salinas High and cross-town rival Watsonville High, which also advanced to the Mission Division.
This season, St. Francis already faced teams such as Gilroy and Palma high schools.
To make the matter even more challenging, the Sharks have just nine players on the roster and two—Sam Braun and Rose—have varsity experience.
“We’re a very young and new team, so just the experience level is not there yet,” Braun said. “With only two returning players it’s a much different game.”
Braun recorded a game-best 42 points with eight 3-pointers for St. Francis in a 75-65 loss to Scotts Valley High to close out the preseason portion of their schedule on Dec. 29.
The senior guards put up more than half of the team’s scoring as the two primary offensive contributors.
Braun leads the Sharks in scoring with an average of 21.4 points per game, while Rose contributes an average of 12.5 points per contest.
Prior to the season, St. Francis was set on having a pair of returning players who made a valuable impact to last year’s league title run.
However, they won’t be able to return due to injuries and school priorities.
In order for the Sharks to see the improvement they are looking for, it will take “the little things—going for rebounds, helping the team out in any aspect that they can,” Rose said.
With a school enrollment size of 227 students, St. Francis continuously finds itself at a statistical disadvantage compared to schools such as Gilroy with well over 1,753 students, according to the U.S. News and World Report website.
But that didn’t stop the Sharks last season who at one point won eight consecutive games before a loss to Marina High in the regular season finale ended their run.
St. Francis saw its season come to an end following a loss to Priory School in the Central Coast Section Division V semifinals.
With league play yet to begin, there is still plenty of time for the Sharks to pull together a season worth remembering.
The Sharks tipped off their Mission Division season at home against Alisal High on Thursday evening. Game results were not available prior to this publication’s deadline.
“Right now, winning seven games in league would be great—to qualify for CCS,” Edwards said. “We’re probably one of the five or six best teams in CCS Division V, but it doesn’t mean anything if we can’t get there.”
Improvement often comes as a consequence of deliberate practice, but even that has been a challenge for the Sharks.
With only nine rotation players, the varsity team had to pull up younger players from the junior varsity team to give them enough people to run plays as they would in a game setting.
Coaches have gone as far as calling upon St. Francis alumni for a return to the court to help with practices due to sickness with current players, which has further depleted an already small team.
For the seniors, getting the new players on board has been a process in which they’ve seen great signs of improvement.
“The big thing right now is toughness,” Braun said. “I think the varsity level is a much more physical game than they’re used to, and just doing the little things.”
The learning curve from JV to varsity is a large one, as is the jump from the Cypress to Mission division. The Sharks—apart from their two veterans—are growing accustomed to both.
Braun and Rose are expected to lead the team, yet they also fully expect their teammates to begin making valuable contributions once they have a few more games under their belts.
“I’m not all that disappointed,” Edwards said of how the first half of the season is going, so far. “I think our best days are ahead of us for sure.”
The Sharks continue PCAL Mission Division action at Stevenson School on Jan. 10 at 7pm.
