A Change of Scenery for CCHS Basketball
Culver City Basketball just wrapped up another successful, albeit uniquely challenging, season with both the boys team and girls varsity team going to CIF playoffs. After severe flooding damaged our gym after rain storms in December, all 5 of our basketball teams had to play their home games away from home in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium.
The CCHS Varsity Boys Basketball team finished 11-12 and 6th place in the Ocean League with 2 players being the best in their positions, made all ocean league teams. Senior William Fourte made the all Ocean League first team along with senior Jordan Njoku, who made the all Ocean League second team. Next, our Girls Varsity team finished with a .500 record at 13-13 and 4th in the Ocean League. As stated before, both teams made CIF playoffs where the boys team were eliminated in a thrilling one point loss against Saugus. The girls made it to the second round before falling to Burroughs.
Outside of wins and losses, the teams went through a major change after losing the CCHS gym. Both boys and girls varsity, JV and the boys frosh/soph teams had to relocate to alternate locations such as Veterans Park. Boys head coach Ray Singleton has acknowledged that “not having home games doesn't feel good”. Also, when asked about what the team has been going through he said, "It's surreal. We have to practice at the middle school and that's a smaller gym. We are not the only team that has to deal with adversity, so we just have to make the best of the situation because it's out of our control”.
The atmosphere at these games was much more energized in comparison to games at the CCHS gym. There was a small band, the entire cheer team and a brand new CCHS Majorette dance group, all bringing energy into the auditorium space. Xander Santamaria, a member of the band’s saxophone section, explained how playing at vets was “a really fun and unique experience” for everyone in the band, who value getting to play in different parts of our city. Games at the CCHS gym didn't have this many groups of students backing our team, so the move to Vets opened up a lot of new opportunities. For instance, the new dance team, the Lady Centaurs did their first ever performance on senior night.
The senior night games for both Varsity teams were against Leuzinger and were the most important games at Vets. They brought an amazing atmosphere to the auditorium with all of our seniors' friends and family in attendance for the girls game first and then the boys. The crowd was consistently making noise and creating a perfect send off game for senior players. Despite neither of our varsity teams getting a win, many memories were made during the ceremony before the game where our seniors and their families received gifts and had their picture taken on the court.
The Veterans Auditorium is an important and interesting part of Culver City history. It is attached to the 122 foot tall Veterans Memorial “tourist tower” which was originally built to overlook the MGM Studios lots and hold a movie museum and restaurant to attract tourists; now, it is just an empty building with stairs and an elevator. Since it was built in 1950, the auditorium has been anything but empty, hosting a variety of events like musical theater performances, graduation ceremonies, orchestra performances, and now high school basketball games. The Varsity teams played 3 games each at Vets and were overall successful in this new venue, going 4-2 combined.