ACL injuries hurting Fresno City women’s basketball team

It has been a brutally painful early season for the Fresno City College women’s basketball team.

Three players – sophomore point guard Julia Cuellar, freshman forward Bobbie Henry and freshman guard Isabella Naranjo – are out for the year because of ACL injuries.

“The three players we lost played an important role to the success of our team,” Rams coach Brian Tessler said. “In 28 years of coaching I have never experienced anything like this. All three injuries were freak accidents.”

▪ Cuellar tore her anterior cruciate ligament against City College of San Francisco at the Sierra Tournament in November.

▪ Henry tore hers against Chabot at the Contra Costa Tournament in early December.

▪ Later in December, Naranjo was hurt against Chabot at the West Hills Tournament.

Cuellar and Henry will take medical redshirt seasons, but Naranjo will lose her freshman year because she already had played too many games.

“All three players were vital to our overall success,” Tessler said. “They bought in to how hard we expect our players to compete on and off the court.”

Despite the injuries, the Rams opened Central Valley Conference play Wednesday with a 70-41 victory over Merced to improve to 14-6 and 1-0.

Fresno City visits West Hills-Lemoore at 2 p.m. Saturday before a home game against Taft at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Sophomore guard Heaven Holmes has carried the load for the Rams, averaging 13.9 points per game.

“Our style of play will not change,” Tessler said. “We’re going to press and play at as fast a pace as we can. In games, we have to be careful about foul trouble, but other than that we won’t make many changes. The real challenge comes in practice. We have managers come in and practice with us in order to go 5 on 5.”

Rams men’s hoops rolling – Fresno City has won four straight, including a 119-71 rout of Merced to open the CVC men’s season. Rams guard Christian Carroll led all scorers with 25 points, hitting 7 for 11 from beyond the arc.

Fresno City (12-4, 1-0) finished 18 for 33 from 3-point range.

Carroll is averaging 12.5 points per game to lead the Rams.

Fresno City visits West Hills at 6 p.m. Saturday in Coalinga. The Rams’ conference home opener is against Columbia at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Volleyball – Jenna Goldsberry of the state champion Rams volleyball team was named California Community College Athletic Association female Athlete of the Month.

Goldsberry had 13 kills and a .500 hitting percentage in a first-round Northern California Regional win over Foothill, then 19 kills and 12 digs in a second-round sweep of Feather River.

The Rams won all nine of their sets at the state tournament, sweeping through the top three seeds from the South.

This story was originally published January 6, 2017 at 5:37 PM with the headline "ACL injuries hurting Fresno City women’s basketball team."