West duo Adams, Villalobos record double-doubles in first varsity basketball game
May 15—Under any circumstance, the varsity basketball debuts of Caleigh Adams and Mikayla Villalobos would have been impressive.
The freshman duo from West High played well beyond their experience level last Monday, each recording double-doubles in the Vikings' nail-biting 56-55 win over Mira Monte. Adams finished the game with 23 points and 12 rebounds with Villalobos adding 18 and 10, as well as three assists and three steals.
While this would have been noteworthy in a normal year, Adams and Villalobos' feat seems almost Herculean when considering everything that led up to that first game.
Like many teams in the city, West had to deal with a COVID shutdown this spring, going into quarantine on April 24. Once cleared to return, the Vikings were only able to hold one practice before playing back-to-back games against Mira Monte and Highland on May 10 and 11.
So not only did Adams and Villalobos stuff the stat sheet in their high school debut, they did so with virtually no time to prepare with their teammates, a task that proved to be anything but easy.
"It was definitely a lot harder than I'd expected it to be," Adams said. "Especially because we were out of shape being off those 14 days. I wasn't expecting too much but (we) came up with double-doubles, which was cool."
While her conditioning was less than 100 percent, Villalobos closed her debut by displaying a late-game mental resolve many players with greater seniority struggle to obtain.
With West trailing by a point in the closing seconds, hope was slipping away as a pair of open looks bounced off the rim. But through a scrum of bodies in the paint, Villalobos came up with her eighth offensive rebound, picking up a loose ball and drawing a foul on her putback attempt with 1.4 seconds remaining.
With all eyes on her, she calmly stepped to the line and put her first two high school free throw through the net, providing the decisive points in the 56-55 win.
"I just went up to the free throw line, took a couple deep breaths and told myself 'You know what you need to do,'" Villalobos said. "And I knocked them down."
The performance and resolve of the pair is not surprising to West coach Noemi Frink, who already views Adams and Villalobos as two of the team's primary leaders despite their inexperience.
"The skills that they have, it's definitely a higher level than you would expect most freshmen to play out," Frink said. "Their leadership skills, their basketball IQ, it's very impressive for their age."
Already heading into a bit of a transition year, a COVID shutdown didn't exactly make things easier on a Viking team with no seniors. West currently has just six games on its regular season schedule and proper preparation remains hard to come by.
A day after a 40-34 loss to Highland, the team was forced to practice outdoors in temperatures approaching 100 degrees, as scheduling conflicts caused by a hectic, condensed athletics season didn't provide any indoor options.
But even if there will be struggles in the short term, the future has players and coaches brimming with optimism.
Adams even snagged another double-double in the Highland game, scoring 11 points to go along with 15 rebounds. And though she is trying not to get too far ahead of herself, she makes it known she has big plans for herself and her team in the coming seasons.
"I know we already have high expectations for ourselves, so it's kind of hard if we get (them) to go higher because that's a lot of pressure that we already have," she said. "You've just got to keep the same headspace. But we can really do things here."
Villalobos, the more vocal of the two, is more specific with her goals, saying she hopes to start by winning league titles and take it from there.
"Our goal is to be a championship team," she said. "That's what we want. We want to get everybody involved, everybody on the same page, really build this program up to where we can really go places and do big things."
The Vikings host Ridgeview at 7:30 p.m. Monday
