Last Saturday, Feb. 3, Occidental College Women’s basketball team beat Whittier College 64-48, with shooting guard Dara Tokeshi (sophomore) on the court for a total of 36 minutes of game time: the most of any member on the team. According to Tokeshi, much of the team’s success has come from their unity, both on and off the court. She credits this for their success against Whittier especially, who they had lost two only two months prior.
“Our ability to work together outside of the court really helps us on the court,” Tokeshi said. “Given the two months that we had to prepare just with other teams [and] other practices I think we were really prepared to come back and get the win.”
Given how small the team is, Tokeshi said players are often forced to work on overdrive but remain wary of injuries throughout; this pushes the team to really have a certain kind of drive to get through.
“Since we only have ten [people on the team], if one person can’t practice, we can’t even play a full 5v5 game,’ Tokeshi said. “Against Whittier, in particular, we had our starting point guard out, so it was just that much more grit that we had to put in for the Whittier game and I think we did that.”
Tokeshi spent 36 minutes on the court in their game against Whittier, a kind of commitment which, according to her teammates, Micah Elgores (first-year) is so characteristic of her playing style.
“I don’t expect any less of Dara,” said Elgores. “She’s our titan of toughness on the team: that’s the term that we’ve given her. I swear she does not get tired; I swear she doesn’t sweat. I am breathing heavily and feel like I’ve run a marathon. This girl comes onto the bench and she’s fine.”
According to Tokeshi, she was drawn to Oxy by how small it is. She said she wanted a small community and that unlike other schools, the basketball team here felt really welcoming, not only in how they talked to her, but how they talked to and about one another. This has led to a team atmosphere that Tokeshi likens to family: for better or for worse.
“We act like siblings; I feel like at the root of everything we love each other but obviously there are times where people don’t agree with the critiques they’re given or just they don’t like something that others have done so that definitely causes some tension, but I think we are all mature enough,” Tokeshi said. “At the end of the day we all want the same thing and so I think that makes it easy to get over yourself and mend the issues. We want to win, and we want to be the best for each other.”
It hasn’t all been easy for the team, however. While they’re 19-4 this season, Tokeshi said that losses like that against Cal Lutheran University are demonstrative of just how important team cohesion is.
“We just didn’t feel as united as we normally are and that shifted the momentum of the game,” Tokeshi said. “Once we lost that momentum it was hard to get it back: especially playing away: that’s never really our strong suit.”
But according to Tokeshi these losses are also learning opportunities. More than that, even, they fuel the team’s spirit.
“Using the feeling to fuel us for the next couple of games will be very important. I think everybody hates losing and so we always tell each other after we lose to remember this feeling and use it,” Tokeshi said. “There’s so much [desire] to win from people on the team. I think it just lights more fire.”
Elgores agrees and said that losses like these shouldn’t set the team back too much.
Looking forward, Tokeshi said the team is looking to recuperate their losses when they face Cal Lutheran University in the postseason tournament and is confident that the team can do it.
“When we are the more aggressive team, most of the time we come out on top,” Tokeshi said. “I think none of us want to feel [the way we did when we lost] again.”
Tokeshi and the team face Pomona-Pitzer in their next SCIAC game on Wednesday Feb. 14.
Contact Will White at wwhite@oxy.edu
