By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– Last year was a good foundation layer for the Chemeketa Community College Women’s Basketball team.
They snapped a lengthy playoff drought as they reached the NWAC Postseason for the first time since the 2016 season under first-year Head Coach Justin Sherwood. And under Year 2 of Sherwood, with a new-look squad, they’re hoping to carry that success over to the 2025-2026 season.
“Just competitive all the time, working hard, but having fun too. That’s what we’re trying to do, show up everyday and get better and play to a Storm Standard,” Sherwood said.
Ava Rubio (McNary), Ashley Barba (Central), Mia Fullbright (Santiam Christian) and Ella Holswege (Corbett) all return from last year’s squad. Sherwood is expecting a lot out of what he calls his ‘Core 4’ of players from last year’s squad.
“They’re like the core four, they all are probably going to start and a lot of minutes. They help come build a culture and what we started last year and transition that to this year,” Sherwood said.
Bethany Villegas (McNary) and Emma Juarez (McKay) redshirted last year and will add some more experience to the Chemeketa roster this Winter. Izzy Flores (South Salem) returns to the basketball court after a year away as Flores focused on Soccer the last two seasons. Patricia Mike (McNary), Madyson Bell (Yamhill-Carlton) and Kaiya Woolsey (Dallas) are some of the notable freshmen that the Storm brought in this season, which kicked off Tuesday night when they opened the season with an Exhibition Game with the Oregon Basketball Club to see where they’re at currently a month into the season.
“It was a good start. It was a good situation where they got to play against someone else. We’ve been practicing against each other for a month, so we got to play and run our stuff against someone else and see what worked. So it was a good step into the season. You practice, practice, practice and that’s an avenue to go out there, without the pressure of winning and losing, we got to steal a game and play against different people,” said Sherwood.
Chemeketa opens the season November 21 against Shoreline. The NWAC South Region play starts January 3 at Clark.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
