Fiery Carlmont girls’ basketball team wins fourth straight

Nelson saw limited minutes Wednesday night as the Carlmont girls’ basketball (4-0) team emptied its bench in a 57-37 blowout of visiting Mountain View (1-3). The fast-paced and fiery junior big shared the game-high of 13 points with Carlmont point guard Willow Ishibashi-To, but set the tone by scoring nine of those points in the first quarter.

“The coach always wants us to push the ball fast-paced because he knows we’re in shape,” Nelson said.

Head coach Richard Stephens is in his second year at Carlmont, and has already put his stamp on the program by turning his players loose to run the court with speed and intensity.

Stephens spent the two previous seasons as an assistant at Mitty before taking over for former Scots head coach Dan Mori. Now, Stephens has Carlmont taking after powerhouse Mitty in terms of results. The Lady Scots are off to a 4-0 start this season, the program’s best start in over 15 years.

Carlmont outscored Mountain View 27-5 in the first quarter, and seemed to shoot its best when playing at a fiery pace. This is by design to compensate for the team’s lack of height. It wasn’t until the second half, when the Scots committed 16 of their 25 turnovers, that they tried to slow the tempo, causing them to struggle with their shooting rhythm.

“We’re not big,” Stephens said. “So we either have to be really aggressive and use what we have, and we have some pretty athletic kids. So we want to push the ball and push pace, and try to make it difficult for teams.”

But when the Scots are on, look out. They hit five 3s in the contest, all in the first half. Three of them came off the hot hand of senior guard Arianna Delrooz, who finished the dominant first-quarter run with a sweet step-back splash.

Nelson also connected for a 3 early in the game, something that comes naturally for the post forward, a position the third-year varsity junior only started playing in high school as the tallest player on the Carlmont roster.

“I play guard in my summer league (with the Daly City Bulldogs), but for here I play post because we don’t got height,” Nelson said. “So, five-way player.”

Ishibashi-To has some serious moves as well, and is just as prone to the hot hand. Of her 13 points, nine of them came in the second quarter, including a manic sequence that saw Carlmont score eight points in under a minute.

It started with the senior point guard dishing as assist pass to Delrooz for a 3. Then Ishibashi-To stole the inbound pass and drew a foul on the way to the basket to convert an and-1. After knocking down the free throw, Ishibashi-To gave a command performance, stealing the next inbound pass as well and drawing a shooting foul, converting both free throws.

Ishibashi-To — one of two point guards, along with senior Olivia Pon — finished with a game-high five steals.

“Our first priority is the bigs,” Nelson said. “All our bigs are strong, and that’s our No. 1 option. But our guards are pretty good … and we’re all just good playing along together.”

Mountain View forward Alana Sukhi finished with a team-high 11 points.

Stephens said Carlmont tried to take anywhere from 200 to 300 3-pointers a day in practice. So, the first half of Wednesday’s victory is the working model for where Stephens is looking to take the program — highlighted by three starting varsity juniors and one starting sophomore — for the foreseeable future.

“Now, if we get three or four 6-3 transfers, we might play a little differently,” Stephens said. “But it’s kind of who we have. We have some athletic kids who like to run, and we’re fit. … We prepared to be able to play this way.”