Sanchez breaking records, Pitman winning games: Pride move to 6-0 in CCAL

For Pitman High guard Avery Sanchez, basketball was the “shiny new fun thing.”

The 6-foot-2 guard grew up playing four sports, soccer, football, baseball and basketball. While he enjoyed all of them, basketball called to him. Slowly, he stopped playing other sports. He gave up football and put down the baseball bat early on, leaving the choice between soccer and hoops. He recalls hanging up his cleats early in seventh grade.

“The other sports were still fun, but I found my passion. I love working out, I love getting better with basketball,” he said. “I always wanted to be around it and so I just stuck with that.

“Basketball was like the shiny new fun thing that I always wanted to work on. I wanted to lift weights and get stronger so I could jump. I was obsessed with trying to jump high.”

Seventh grade is also when he became obsessed with the late Kobe Bryant. As with many young basketball players, Bryant’s tenacity, scoring ability and work ethic made him the perfect role model.

“It was just his work ethic and his mentality,” Sanchez said. “Growing up playing a lot of basketball and coming from Turlock, you try to figure things out. How can you compete with kids from other areas? How can you compete with the best? And sometimes you need a little bit of confidence. Knowing his thought process let me know that my confidence comes from the work that I put in, not what anybody else is doing.”

Almost exactly four years after his basketball idol died in a helicopter crash, Sanchez scored 33 points in an important overtime win over Gregori. The victory was Pitman’s third in a row and kept the Pride perfect in Central California Athletic League play.

Sanchez’s efforts also gave him a spot in school history as the junior three-year starter broke the school’s career points record. Current Hilmar High head coach Austin Keaton held the mark for 15 seasons after starting his four-year varsity career in the 2004-05 season and graduating in 2008.

The new total after Sanchez’s effort in Wednesday’s contest was 1,226 and it will only continue to climb as he finishes his high school career.

Did the possibility of breaking the school’s scoring record ever cross his mind growing up?

“Definitely not entering high school,” he said. “I was kind of just focusing on what I was doing at the time, but it’s definitely a nice achievement. It wasn’t anything I knew until after the game. I was told and I’m still kind of trying to wrap my mind around it because I’m in season mode and I’m laser focused on that. … I don’t think I’ve wrapped my head around how many great players have been at Pitman before me and how grateful I am to be up there included with them.”

Though he grew up in Turlock within the Pitman High district, he never thought too much about what his career at Pitman would look like. But since entering the program as a freshman starter, Sanchez has immersed himself in the work, much like Bryant did.

He trains in his free time, lifts weights after games, eats all the right things and puts in time in the classroom.

This season, Sanchez has helped lead the Pride to a 17-6 record and a perfect 6-0 start in the competitive CCAL.

Lightened load has helped Sanchez’s game

Pitman head coach Harvey Marable says part of the reason why Sanchez has been so good this season is because he has fewer responsibilities.

In his first two seasons, Sanchez took on the majority of the ball handling duties, scoring 10 and 16 points as a freshman and sophomore, respectively.

“Coach Marable has given me a lot of freedom. He probably puts up with a lot of stuff that I do on the court, good or bad,” Sanchez said. “But I think it all just came with me getting better, adding elements to my game. Getting stronger, getting taller and faster, jumping higher.”

Senior Justin Anderson, No. 5 on Pitman’s all-time scoring list, has continued to mature physically and mentally and is one of the leaders on the team. Anderson takes on a lot of lead guard responsibilities but rarely turns the ball over. He takes smart shots and on occasion explodes through the lane for thundering dunks.

Sophomore Cole Martin has been a surprise this season. He has already scored 25 or more points at least twice this season and when he missed two league games with an illness, Marable said the team felt his absence. Martin returned Friday night against Modesto and picked up where he left off in his second varsity campaign.

“The responsibility to do everything for us this year has been relieved of him, however, his contributions are still needed and his leadership is still needed,” Marable said of Sanchez. “Any good player would want to have some people around them to allow them to take a break.”

Despite seeing box-and-1’s and other combination defenses, Sanchez has managed to increase his scoring once again as a junior to over 20 points a game.

“That’s a huge achievement,” Marable said of Sanchez setting a new school career scoring record. “It’s something that should be enjoyed and he still has another year to work. He’s only going to get better.”

Pride still unbeaten, always working to get better

Marable speaks to his team about incremental improvements, and that’s what he saw in Friday night’s 69-23 win over Modesto.

The Pride were better defensively and offensively, allowing just under half the points they did in their first matchup this season against the Panthers, while scoring more points while implementing new offensive strategies and schemes.

“I was telling the gentlemen that we’re just working on constantly getting better in little ways everywhere we can, every game,” Marable said. “When we start on Monday, we’re gonna work on some things to get a little better than we were.”

The Pride jumped out to a 10–0 lead and by the end of the first quarter were ahead 22-5. Three players scored double figures in the balanced effort. Anderson scored 15 points and Martin outscored the Panthers on his own, pouring in a game-high 26. Sanchez added to his record total with 19, putting the new record at 1,245.

Pitman continues its hunt for the program’s first league title since tying Turlock for first place in the Central California Conference during the 2014-15 season. The Pride have not won a CCAL title during a full season but finished 9-1 in league contests during the short season in spring 2021.

The Pride have four league games before the Sac-Joaquin Section basketball playoffs, where they will chase a first-round win after earning No. 16 seeds and losing in the first round in two of the past four full seasons.

“We just come out here and we’ve got a group of guys that works hard. They don’t complain and they give effort every single time,” Sanchez said. “We’ve had a good league start, but we’re just taking it one game at a time. We’re not good enough to underestimate anybody. We’re not the biggest, not the fastest, we’re not the strongest. We know that. So we got to work every night. We’re focused on going into every game just work, work, work.”