Jenna Brodkin
Sports Editor
For the second consecutive year, Costa boys and girls basketball held Mustang Madness on Nov. 2, a pep rally to promote the upcoming basketball season. The event was done in collaboration with many organizations on campus, and featured basketball, and fun skill competitions.
Girls basketball assistant coach Haley Herdman first introduced the event last year after finding inspiration from basketball pep rallies put on by USC and Loyola Marymount, where she played collegiate division one basketball. According to Herdman, setting up the event this year was easier because of last year’s framework.
“This year, planning the event went much smoother because I had an idea of how it would run given our experience from last year,” Herdman said. “However, I was determined to make it even better than our first year.”
The event also featured a series of shooting competitions, in which teams comprised of players from both the girls’ and boys’ varsity teams competed to see who could make more shots in a given amount of time. In one of the events, girls sophomore guard Hayden Lin hit an improbable half court shot to win her team a competition.
“I was really surprised I made that shot,” Lin said. “I was very happy because I really wanted my team to win that competition.”
Members of the girls and boys basketball teams put on a surprise performance of a dance routine created by members of the dance team. Junior center Luke Hammerschmidt was the lead dancer in the routine.
“We had two after school rehearsals that were an hour each,” Hammerschmidt said. “We additionally had another rehearsal right before the event as well.”
The highlight of the event was a dunk contest between various players in the boys basketball program. Junior small forward Jacob De Armas hit a between-the-legs eastbay dunk and a behind-the-back dunk in the final round to defeat junior JV center Jack Mondello, who dunked over a teammate in an earlier round.
“I’ve hit the eastbay before so I was pretty confident that I could do it,” De Armas said. “But I had never hit the behind-the-back before, and the rush of adrenaline from the crowd was able to help me get it on my first try.”
According to Herdman, the basketball program is proud of the success that Mustang Madness had in both promoting the upcoming season and serving as a platform to make members of both basketball teams feel recognized.
“My goal is always to make sure both boys and girls’ teams have fun,” Herdman said. “I feel that was accomplished, and I am very happy about that.”
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