On Feb. 9, Delta’s women’s basketball team beat Modesto 64-61 during the Coaches vs. Cancer game.
In honor of breast cancer awareness, a free shirt was given out at the point of entry, while the Mustangs played in pink and black jerseys.
The game was off to a slow start for the Mustangs giving up nine points and not scoring any.
Coach Gina Johnson said the team has a lot of work to do on the slow starts.
“It’s great that we won, but we have a lot of work to do,” Johnson said after the game. “We are still young and we just tend to start games really slow, we’re still trying to figure out how to play together better.”
At the end of the first quarter, the score was 17-13 Modesto.
Freshman guard Serenity Santos was the leading scorer, finishing with 20 points and keeping the Mustangs afloat in the first half.
Delta took the first lead of the game halfway through the 2nd quarter 26-24 and limited Modesto to only 12 points in the second.
The Mustangs remained in the lead throughout the first half and went into halftime with a 34-29 lead.
“It felt really good and it was a really fun game,” said Santos. “We do need to work on a couple of things though but we did play good as a team and grew.”
At halftime, the athletes and coaches were joined by the California Breast Cancer Support Group. A moment of silence took place, with loved ones’ names held up on signs and honoring cancer survivors and people who are still impacted by cancer.
In the third quarter, Modesto made it a close game again and it ended tied 44-44.
In the last five minutes of the fourth quarter, the lead changed five times.
With under a minute left, Modesto made a layup to put them up 61-60 — until Freshman guard Senia Moore hit her only 3-pointer to put the Mustangs up 63-61. From then on it was a battle at the free-throw line.
Modesto missed two free throws and intentionally fouled Santos who made one out of two free throws making the final score 64-61 Mustangs.
Moore said the team worked hard for her to get the clutch shot.
“We didn’t think the game would be that close but in the fourth quarter we came out strong, and we work day in and night out on moving the ball and my point guard just found me so I could hit the shot,” Moore said.
The final score left the Mustangs at 20-4.
“Winning 20 games is hard in this state and in this conference, in the Big 8 Conference we have a lot of hard matchups, and being in California is hard in general but we have been doing our thing,” said Moore.