Eight Is Enough for San Marcos : Playing Time Isn’t Ever a Problem With Fewer Players

SAN DIEGO —  When San Marcos girls’ basketball coach Bob Kellison eyes his bench for possible substitutions, he finds more empty space than available players.

Because there are just three people sitting there.

See, only eight girls make up his Avocado-League champion basketball team. It’s not there’s a lack of interest in basketball at San Marcos High, but, fact is, Kellison says he prefers a smaller squad.

“With only eight players I don’t have to worry about over-substituting or over-pleasing anyone on the team,” Kellison said. “Eight keeps the right chemistry out there.”

In his four years with the Knight varsity squad, Kellison has never had more than 10 players on his team, and that makes trimming the roster a chore. This season, there was a large turnout for the tryouts, and when he finally filled out his roster, there were five seniors and three juniors remaining.

The others with potential went to the junior varsity.

“There’s no reason to carry a girl on the team if she’s never gonna play,” Kellison said. “I’d rather have her play down with the J.V. team where she can get some experience.”

And everybody on the varsity, naturally, sees much playing time. And they win. The Knights have compiled a 25-3 record this year and went undefeated in league play.

“Everybody gets to play,” said senior guard Debbie Hartwig. “If we had more players and got into a situation where we were killing a team, the starters would be on the bench. With eight, you get to be out on the court throughout the game, and the starters deserve to be on the court.”

Kellison said: “The only reason I don’t start seven players is because I have to start five. If we can go with fresh bodies all the time, while the other team has five tired ones, we have to have an advantage.”

A potential problem: Foul trouble. When it happens, Kellison simply changes from a man to man defense to a zone. And he stops his full court pressure.

Another potential problem: Practice. For games, eight players suits Kellison just fine. But it can hurt workouts, especially when the team needs to scrimmage. So he recruited four boys to come out and work with the team during practice.

“Playing with the boys makes us more aggressive,” said Hartwig, who averages 15.3 points a game. “They jump right out of the gym . . . they’re so much taller than us. It helps us with our fakes when we’re playing against the taller girls.”

Said senior guard Robin Paladino, the league’s player of the year: “The guys are always doing fastbreaks against us. “We’d get so tired running up and down the court, but it’s good conditioning for us.”

Kellison did bring up three players from the San Marcos junior varsity team to help round out his squad for the recent CIF playoffs and for Saturday’s 2-A final against Southwest High at the Sports Arena.

“The three new faces were a shot in the arm to our team in practice and in games,” Kellison said.