Santa Clara Has Player Shortage

In her fourth season as coach of the Santa Clara High girls’ basketball team, Sherri Cvijanovich has raised the knowledge and skill of her players considerably. Problem is, there’s fewer and fewer of them.

Santa Clara, which had more than 800 students 10 years ago, has seen its enrollment drop to less than 300. And nowhere is the exodus being felt more severely than athletics.

“I have 21 kids in my whole program and we lose four seniors after this year,” Cvijanovich said. “There are 28 girls in this year’s freshman class and five or six of them play basketball. The day where I cut anyone with any type of potential is no more.”

Cvijanovich said she had eight players on her first varsity team when she took over a rundown program. Since then, the Saints have shown marked improvement but are back to square one in terms of depth.

“I had nine players on varsity recently,” Cvijanovich said. “At practice me and my assistants have to play.”

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Rank rankings: Chaminade jumped from 10th to ninth in this week’s Southern Section Division III-A girls’ basketball rankings.

The Eagles, listed by the Southern Section as having a 12-4 record, actually are 5-15, 0-5 in Mission League play, including a 79-55 loss to Notre Dame in their only game last week.