Shew, Brown lead East roster

They’re coming back for an encore.

Nearly three months after each Orange Belt senior’s season ended with a loss, they get a chance at redemption in the Tulare-Kings Counties All-Star Game. 

The stakes aren’t as high, the girls are not in basketball shape and there won’t be any elaborate plays, but this game still features the best local basketball talent playing for the last time as high-schoolers.

“They’re all pretty talented and they’re all out of shape,” Porterville High and East coach Brian Hill said. “These All-Star games are more about just letting the kids showcase their talents. It’s their All-Star game. We’ll just put them on the floor and let them play.”

The East squad features five Orange Belt players -— Porterville’s Alex Shew and Stevee Thomas, Lindsay’s Stevi Ibarra and Cassie Manning and Exeter’s Ashley Wilson — while the West features top players from Visalia, Hanford and Kingsburg. 

Nine players make up the East roster but in the four organized practices, Hill never saw a complete turnout.

He attributed this to varying conflicts like softball games or other school-related activities.

Another factor limiting the team’s capabilities is some of the girls being in softball shape as opposed to basketball shape.

“In basketball you run all the time; in softball you don’t run too much,” Hill said. “Some of these girls haven’t run much since basketball season.”

Thomas, Manning and Wilson are coming straight out of their senior softball seasons. This is nothing new for Lindsay’s pair of athletes, as they have been transitioning in and out of sports all year long. 

Ibarra and Manning both played volleyball and basketball while also playing a spring sport (Ibarra was on the swim team).

“It’s definitely been a long and tiring season for them,” Lindsay coach Troy Manning said. “But I’ve talked to both of them and they wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Shew and Thomas were on the best Porterville team in six seasons, helping the Panthers to the Valley title game. Shew was the EYL’s MVP, scoring more than 18 points per game, while Thomas was on the second team. 

Shew isn’t pretending this game’s as important as the many that took her team to Fresno and Irvine but wouldn’t mind exiting a winner.

“The practices aren’t that serious,” Shew said. “This game’s just for fun. Everybody wants to win but it doesn’t really matter overall. (Winning) would mean a lot to me and I hope it happens.”

Ibarra was the ESL’s volleyball MVP while Manning took the league’s softball honor. 

Together on the court, they averaged 10.9 and 6.6 points, respectively, and led Lindsay to the Division IV playoffs.

“I thought it was a good decision by the coaching staff to put them on there,” coach Manning said. “They were the backbone of our team. Cassie was one of the best point guards around and Stevi, while she wasn’t really a big girl, knew how to get rebounds on big girls.”

That skill will come in handy tonight. The West team has Santa Clara-bound center Becca Thomas (Redwood), who stands 6-foot-2 and averaged 12.2 points and 10.1 rebounds a game. Hill said Ebone Brown (5-foot-8, Tulare Union) will be tasked with guarding her for the most part.

“It’s gonna be hard. We’re probably gonna have to rely on our outside shooters more since we have no height,” Shew said. 

Hill didn’t spend too much time game-planning for Thomas or any specific West player. The game, to him, is more about the girls enjoying themselves on the high school court one more time.

“In All-Star games, you just kind of ad-lib and let kids create shots,” he said. “When it’s time to play, they’ll play and hopefully have a lot of fun doing it.”

Girls Rosters

East

Jayme Salim, Chavez

Alex Shew, Porterville

Stevee Thomas, Porterville

Stevi Ibarra, Lindsay

Cassie Manning, Lindsay

Ana Barroga, Delano

Ebone Brown, Tulare Union

Cherri Guererro, Tulare Western

Ashley Wilson, Exeter

Coach - Brian Hill, Porterville

West

Becca Thomas, Redwood

Korin Macias, Hanford

Coty Head, Hanford West

Marissa Nelson, El Diamante

Nicole Simoni, El Diamante

Anneka Verhoven, CVC

Elisa Weathers, Kingsburg

Shaylee Yano, Kingsburg

Coach - Jason Black, Hanford West