Winning the school’s first Central Section championship in girls basketball wasn’t a surprise for Roosevelt High coach Mark Gradoville.

This was: After the Rough Riders rallied from 10 points down in the fourth quarter for a stirring 51-47 win over Porterville for the Division III title at Selland Arena on March 7, a Saturday, the physical education teacher checked his school mailbox the following Monday morning and was greeted with a neat, organized yellow binder stuffed with congratulatory letters from Ms. Lisa Stewart’s second-graders at Leavenworth Elementary School, a Roosevelt feeder.

“You’re my favorite basketball team,” said Alexia.

“We are proud of you,” wrote Melanie in remarkably clean handwriting.

“Your our Champions,” added Ling, meaning “you’re,” but oh well.

It drew tears from Gradoville, The Fresno Bee’s Girls Basketball Coach of the Year and architect of one of the most moving stories in recent section history.

This was a program that went 0-16, extending a losing streak to 42 games, in his first year as coach in 2003.

This is the same program whose record progressively improved to the point of 28-3 this season.

And, as Alexia, Melanie and Ling indicated, someone in Roosevelt’s southeast Fresno community was paying attention.

“Those letters meant a lot,” Riders senior Bee All-Star guard Lashari Clayborne said. “I thought just our school was starting to notice girls basketball, but elementary kids are looking up to us and seeing a positive team and great women, too.”

Following a long line of family coaches, including his father, Bob, who did so for 30 years in Nebraska, Gradoville flung a green towel over his shoulder and led with a determined style that was embraced by the smallish team.

Comebacks were customary for Roosevelt, which sprinted baseline to baseline, fired from afar and pressured tirelessly. Finally, playing out dramatically Gradoville’s motto, “Refuse to Lose,” which was advertised on their warm-ups, the Riders staged the electrifying rally against Porterville, which arrived 28-2.

And besides going 10-0 in the North Yosemite League, Roosevelt went 6-0 in nonleague play against Clovis Unified schools and also defeated Sanger, Bullard and D-IV champion Corcoran.

“This group feared nobody,” Gradoville said. “To see it happen for these kids, and the way it happened, you couldn’t write a movie script any better than this — you couldn’t.”