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Cats come home for benefit

Current Wildcats pull away from alumni late in fundraiser game for program.

CLOVIS — The title of a novel by Thomas Wolfe says, "You can't go home again."

That may be generally true. But Thursday night, a group of former Clovis High girls basketball players did indeed return home — specifically, to their basketball home of Rock Staubus Gymnasium - to play on an alumni basketball team that was squaring off against the projected 2018-19 Clovis girls varsity team.

There were no stakes, really. The game was for charity, although for the record, the final score was 55-44 in the varsity team's favor. It did have all the trappings of a winter-time varsity game, with a concession window, public address announcer, even Clovis girls coach Jeff Reed's son Cager running here and there.

But, everyone participated to help raise money for Clovis girls basketball. And have fun. How much of the former was accomplished will be determined when they tally up the receipts.

As far as the latter was concerned, mission accomplished.

"It was fun, it was nice to come back," said Cisti Greenwalt, one of the Lady Wildcats' turn-of-the-century state champions who played for the Alumni team on Thursday.

"Oh, it was a lot of fun," said Johnny Casaus, a former Clovis High assistant girls coach who went on to serve as Hobbs' head girls coach. "It was really fun seeing all the teams from the past."

"It was fun to play against the state champions," said Sofia Rico, who will be a junior on the 2018-19 team.

"I had so much fun," Aydan Everett, another 2018-19 junior-to-be said. "It was great to be a part of it."

"I was really pleased with the atmosphere and everything," Reed said. "It was good experience for our girls to play against the height and physicality of (the alumni). I think it was a fun night overall."

"It felt good. We're back home," said the Alumni's Niki Black, who was Niki Shaw when she was a member of Clovis High's class of 2000.

Black was the catalyst for Thursday's game, which was the first of what could be several alumni tilts, perhaps an annual thing. She came up with the idea on her way to a doctor's appointment, mentioned it to Clovis High principal Jay Brady, then to Reed.

Black's idea soon snowballed into Thursday night's game, bringing Casaus back to the Clovis fray after all these years.

"It wasn't strange at all," Casaus said. "Not with the kids I coached. We played a lot of basketball together."

"It was fun to coach against Coach Casaus one more time," Reed said. "I used to coach against him when he was at Hobbs, and I think I've known him for probably 32 years. So it was a real fun experience for me."

Fun as it may have been, the teams played serious ball. It was not a Harlem Globetrotters type of show.

"I didn't know how that would go. I didn't know how serious they would take it or not," Reed said. "I think they wanted to play pretty serious, and I think Coach Casaus had 'em going pretty serious. We were just going to use it as a learning experience, try to get better from it because we start summer basketball next week. But there were some times it got competitive in there. Any time it's competitive like that, it's good for us."

The Alumni team managed to be so competitive despite limited preparation time.

"There was stuff we went over earlier in practice," Casaus said. "It was hard for them to really retain it. A lot of stuff they had run a long time ago when they played for us. So, some of it they remembered; some of it we had to call timeouts and tell them what to do."

There were several interesting moments for both teams. Like when Greenwalt, who played for Texas Tech and had a handful of games with the WNBA's Seattle Storm in 2006, hit a three-pointer to open the game's scoring. Or when Greenwalt, still long and lean, made a couple of flat-footed blocks. Or when Everett scored consecutive fourth-quarter baskets — one on a slick head fake that resulted in a wide-open shot, the other after she collected a loose ball and drove for a fast-break layup — quickly turning a 43-41 varsity lead into a six-point advantage.

Mikyla Harkley, a freshman on last season's team, seemed to pick up where she left off in the offensive rebounding department. There was 2018-19 senior-to-be Kaydee Weaver hitting a buzzer-beater to end the first quarter. And there was Alumni player Meagan Brady (class of 2013) hitting a turnaround jumper that rattled home, the game's final points.

The 2018-19 team led by as many as eight in the first half, but the Alumni team scrapped its way back to make its deficit a reasonable 28-24 by halftime.

A Harkley three to begin the third-quarter scoring increased the difference to seven points, and the varsity Lady Wildcats led by as many as nine in that period.

Though the Alumni shaved the margin to just two - that 43-41 score late in the fourth - the varsity team closed with a 12-3 run that showed why it's good to be a teenager.

Perhaps that is the main way you can't go home again, the way Greenwalt - a 2001 Clovis High graduate - said she felt out there.

"Old," she said, "way out of shape. ... It was different when it's been 17 years and four babies later. ... It's not so easy when you're so out of shape. But a good time."

"We had fight in us," Black said, "we just didn't have the endurance like we normally would in the past."

Not even Clovis grads Payton Ware and Susanne Oborny doing their spirited "Craig and Arianna" SNL cheerleader sketch throughout the night could rally the Alumni. Not even their ultimate cheer at halftime.

But the Alumni — some with 30-something bones and muscles — made a great go of it. Perhaps you can go home again, just for one night a year.