Sabina Pedido
On the precipice of scoring her 1000th point, a fire was lit under girls’ varsity basketball player, Sabrina Oakley. She played against Ramona High School in a home game. With the support of her coaches, teammates, and their offensive strategy, “The System”, her teammates pushed the ball up the court giving her lee way for the easy lay-ups and threes.
“[The System] is all about getting the ball on the floor as fast as possible,” Senior Sabrina Oakley said.
With her next game being away, Oakley knew she wanted to score her 1000th point that day at Mt. Carmel. Thus, during Oakley’s practice before game day, her teammates got her more assists than usual, which translated into the game. Assists are defined as a pass to a teammate who scores in two dribbles or less. Maxpreps reported all five starting Seniors got at least one assist with point guard Albina Visoka leading the team with 12 assists.
Nevertheless, Oakley’s individual accomplishments shines through. Before this season, she only had around 450 career points. While an impressive number by itself, Oakley was able to score much more during this season than in her last three seasons combined. This record-breaking feat was only accomplished due to the hard work she put in this past summer and fall.
“During the summer we weightlifted and worked on some shooting mechanics,” Oakley said. “Then in the fall we were conditioning on the track from six to eight in the mornings.”
This hard work has helped her not only score more than 600 points this season, but set the MC record for most points scored in a game – for both boys and girls.
Oakley scored 50 points, the exact amount needed to hit 1000, with only a few minutes left on the board. Her teammates repeatedly passed the ball across the court as she continuously got steals.
She describes shooting her 1000th point as unbelievable.
“It was a super cool moment for the family and friends in the stands, my team, and the coaches,” Oakley said. “Mostly everyone was jumping and/or running around very jubilantly.”
Oakley will be attending The University of Alabama for college. While she does not wish to continue her basketball career after this season, her name will be remembered as not only the 10th player in Mt. Carmel girls basketball history to score 1,000 points, but also for setting an all time record for most points made in a MC game.
