More time, more teamwork, more resolve: juggernaut Acalanes girls basketball team blooms toward title tilt

California's No. 13 team is symmetry, speed in toughness in motion thanks to experience, skill and memory of memorable late assistant coach

Acalanes fourth-year starter and leading scorer Dulci Vail swoops in for a basket at recent game / Photo: Vien Lam

Margaret Gartner has coached basketball long enough to know that complete cohesion sometimes just requires time. 

Time to get to know each other. Time to trust. Time to experience all that life — and loss — has to offer.  

That time appears now for the 28-1 Acalanes-Lafayette girls basketball team, whose team plays San Ramon Valley-Danville (26-3) for the North Coast Section Open Division title 7 p.m. Saturday at Campolindo High School in Moraga. 

Utilizing an up-tempo, high-pressure, share-the-ball, shoot-the-open-shot attack, the Dons play an aesthetically pleasing brand of hoops that has produced more than 71 points per game while allowing less than 38. 

Even Gartner,  in her 27th season as a head coach, takes the time to enjoy the Dons, something she wasn’t inclined to do during her early days as coach. 

“We definitely have made some fans, that’s for sure,” she said. 

The product didn’t come overnight or without setbacks. 

The foundation was was built four years ago when four skilled freshmen — guards Sophie Chinn, Karyss Lacanlale and Natalie Frechman, along with long and athletic wing Dulci Vail — entered the program. 

Acalanes girls basketball holds up a Nike Tournament of Champions title plaque from December. / Courtesy photo: Acalanes Boosters

They hit Contra Costa County by storm with a 25-win season, the most in program history since coach Casey Rush and All-State player Corrie Mizusawa led the Dons to a 30-win state-title season in 1999, finishing off a three-year run of North Coast Section titles. 

That was about the time Gartner was kicking it into high gear at nearby Carondelet-Concord where she spent 22 seasons and won 530 games (losing just 133) and a state title of her own in 2004, also buoyed by a star player, future Stanford and WNBA post player Jayne Appel. 

Gartner left the program in 2016 to focus on her own kids, knowing she’d come back to coach under the perfect situation, which she did five years later at Acalanes, only to be flyswatted out of bounds and out of sorts by the pandemic. 

“That definitely ruined sports for a while,” she said. “Ruined a lot of things.” 

Included, it seemed, her decision to return. 

Growing pains, gains

Practices were outdoors and masked. Distance teaching and learning meshed slowly, awkwardly, guardedly. An award-winning grade-school teacher, Gartner had trouble connecting. Everyone did. “We practiced on two half courts and finally in April got in the gym. We played an 11-game schedule (winning seven). Not the most fun time.” 

But the following year, the freshmen arrived. Everything came together. The Dons went 25-4 won their first NCS title in 20 years, but ended at regionals with a blowout defeat to eventual state champion Salesian-Richmond, a team loaded with strength and seniors. 

More growing pains transpired during a 21-8 campaign the following season and last season’s 26-6 was hit with untimely late injuries, including an ACL knee tear to Chinn. 

“You learn and grow from all of it,” Gartner said. 

It’s all blossomed into a nearly perfect current season, the Dons’ only defeat 68-63 to Oregon power South Medford on Jan. 3. 

Other than that, it’s been symmetry and speed in motion, led by the inside work of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo-bound Vail (15.1 points per game), a springy athletic wing who can do it all.

The point-guard play of LaCanlale (14.8 points, 5.8 assists) is utterly vital as is the physicality and fearlessness of 5-8 guard Ariana Hallstrom (13.8 ppg). 

@KkLacanlale having some fun in Chicago with her @CalStars 17U EYBL team.. @ucdaviswbb @UCSDwbb @UCSB_WBB @csub_wbb @GoArmyWestPoint @Acalanes_gbb pic.twitter.com/8Oqyg5pYnX

— LLacanlale (@LyndonLacanlale) July 30, 2024

There’s also been the lights out shooting from Lexi Le (she made eight 3-pointers in a recent game while scoring 36 points) and Cameron Thornton, a pair of explosive junior guards, not to mention the most vital and steady return of 5-8 Chinn (9.3 ppg), the team’s leading rebounder and second-best distributor. 

“She’s getting back to full strength every game and that’s a huge reason why we continue to peak,” Gartner said. 

Add in spark from senior guard Natalie Frechman, a fourth-year standout, and the Fernandez sisters Sofia (junior) and Sienna (freshman), along with sophomore Aria Falahati and freshman Ava Noga, and it's no wonder the Dons have almost doubled up their opponents' score on the season.

"We have a lot of talented, hard-working and unselfish players," Gartner said.

Share and share alike

The biggest reason for the team’s scoring prowess is something far more basic. “They’ve really bought into sharing the ball more,” Gartner said. “It’s so easy when you are super skilled to take and even make contested shots. These girls can do that. But they’re so much more disciplined to give it up and we’re so much better for it.” 

Their offensive connection probably relates to their defensive thread, Gartner said. And that is woven from a much deeper bond. 

Gartner’s longtime assistant Scott Espinosa-Brown died on Jan. 5 after a long bout with prostate cancer. He was 69. 

Espinosa-Brown, one of the region’s most successful head coaches during the 1980s and 90s, was in charge of Acalanes’ defense before stepping away after the 2023-24 season to focus on his health. He was immensely popular among the team, Gartner said, and often texted them “strong messages of encouragement,” she said. “He had a way to instill so much confidence in them. Even when he was away. He was amazing.” 

Scott Espinosa Brown (1955-2025) / Photo: Courtesy Acalanes High School

There’s a patch on every uniform with his initials, and the team room features a “believe” sign that the players slap before every game and practice because the TV show “Ted Lasso” was one of Espinosa-Brown’s favorites. Many of the Dons have written some of his favorite sayings and defensive instructions on their sneakers.

“We know basketball ends for everybody, but we want to teach them to be strong women out there in the world, able to deal with anything,” Gartner told Jerry McDonald of the Bay Area News Group in a February 2023 story while Espinosa-Brown was battling the disease and coaching. “He’s a daily reminder that life’s a battle too.”

Said then senior Emily Du in 2023: “He always says he’s not coaching basketball, he’s coaching life. That’s always stuck with me. Everything we use in basketball — the grit, resilience — you use it in your life. I always think about that.”

Memorable Monday practice

It's something, two years later, the Dons continue to carry on. More time, more perspective. More grit, more resolve.

They don’t just wear Espinosa-Brown’s words, they’ve played with a greater defensive urgency the last two months to honor him, Gartner said.

“He died on a Sunday and the next day we had the best practice I can ever remember having,” Gartner said. “We didn’t dress out. No ball. We just sat in a circle around midcourt and for two hours told our favorite Scott stories. There were so many laughs and so many tears.” 

Acalanes' 2024-25 girls basketball team posing in late December before heading to Nike TOC. / Courtesy photo: Acalanes Boosters

Three weeks after his passing, the team had a game at Campolindo, where Espinosa-Brown truly made his mark as a head coach, leading the Cougars to state Division 4 titles in 1995, 1996 and 1997. 

“As they’re playing the national anthem and we’re pledging to the flag, we see Scott’s name right up on the wall right by it,” Gartner said. “By the time the anthem stopped, there wasn’t a dry eye on our bench.” 

So when the North Coast Section randomly picked Campolindo as a neutral site to host Saturday’s Open championship game, Gartner took it as a sign. 

“He’s going to be right with us,” she said. “He’s never left.”