With an unprecedented record of 26-3 last year, the girls’ varsity basketball team is now working towards an equally strong season. The team recorded the most wins in Gunn’s sports history.

The varsity team includes seniors Rimona Cartun, Tamar Cartun, Jasmine Evans, Taylor McAdam and Sophie Shevick. The team only lost one starting player, Neva Hauser, who graduated last year. Junior Rachael Clark and seniors Ali Maggioncalda and Marie Volpe moved up from junior varsity (JV) to varsity this season.

Over the summer, both the varsity and JV teams attended three different tournaments across California. In the San Diego Classic, a tournament that featured over 100 varsity teams across California, Gunn was able to win four out of five games to place in the top 20 overall.

“The tournaments are definitely great practice for the season,” Clark wrote in an e-mail message. “[They] helped me bond with the team and get used to playing at the varsity level.”

The team also participated in tournaments held at Sacramento and Stanford University. They got a chance to scrimmage teams in the De Anza League at the Stanford tournament. According to Evans, it was also here that the girls won against Wilcox High School, by over 30 points.

“Wilcox was the only team that beat us last year,” head coach Sarah Stapp said. “We lost to them three times, and all by really close scores. They’re also in the same boat as us because they only lost one starting senior.”

While the team has yet to sit down and formally discuss their goals, winning the league championship and beating Wilcox are on the “to-do” list.

“This season we need to be even more aggressive and be ready to press the entire game,” Stapp said. “We need to score off of the turnovers we force. We’re so athletic that we can literally scare people.”

One of the major changes this season will be the absence of Hauser, who according to Evans, was a valuable asset to the team. “Neva was definitely a very crucial player last year,” Evans wrote in an e-mail message. “Not only could she easily score from the paint but she could just as easily hit a three [pointer]. She was very versatile and a great team leader. Also, her sense of humor always made practices so much more fun.”

One of the advantages of having a team consisting of mostly returning seniors is the established connection and experience. “I’ve coached them for three years, so as seniors, they know what I want,” Stapp said. “They already know a lot and they have the experience—they’re game ready.”

The Lady Titans will be placing an emphasis on defense and physical fitness during practices in order to match last year’s record. “Last year we took pride in it and want to continue the success we had,” Evans wrote in an e-mail message.

One of the team’s major assets is their speed. “We are overall a lot faster than a majority of the teams we play, which helps us defensively and allows us to run up the floor easier and get easy baskets,” Evans wrote in an e-mail message.

This year, the team will be participating in many tournaments, both locally and nationally, throughout December. They will attend the Burlingame Tournament, the Pinewood Tournament and the Orlando Florida Tournament, where the Titans will get the chance to play a variety of teams across the United States. Practice games against Carlton High School, Sacred Heart Preparatory and Mills High School have also been scheduled. The home game against rival Palo Alto High is on Jan. 23 at 6:15 p.m.

“I expect all the girls to be in practice everyday and leave all their troubles at the door,” Stapp said. “Their troubles are still going to be there after practice, so it’s no use being distracted by them. I only ask them to give me as much effort as I give them.”

Come cheer on the Lady Titans at their first league game against Saratoga High School on Tuesday, Jan. 1 at 7 p.m.