(Photo: Tyler Rittenhouse/WCSN)
Clovis West High School secured its first girls basketball state title in school history last March. The team went 34-2 and finished its season in thrilling fashion by upending Archbishop Mitty at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
10 months later, the legacy of the team from Fresno, California still lives on, not only with the state title, but with the players from the program who are excelling at the next level.
Bre’yanna Sanders is a freshman guard on the ASU women’s basketball team. Sanders was a member of the historic Clovis West team, and she has now found her way down to Tempe.
“Leaving my high school and everyone I have known my entire life and coming here … It’s just different,” Sanders said. “It’s a really good change and I love it.”
At Clovis West, Sanders tallied 1,258 career points and grabbed nearly 1,000 rebounds en route to being named a McDonald’s All-American game nominee.
In her first season under ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne, Sanders is adjusting to the college game while playing valuable minutes as a freshman.
In early December, ASU junior guard Sabrina Haines sustained a torn ACL against UC Riverside that has left her out for the season.
At the time, Haines was the leading scorer for the Sun Devils, and the loss served as a devastating blow to a small roster that only features 11 players.
While the injury was a tough loss, it did open up an opportunity for Sanders to earn valuable minutes in an ASU rotation that was in need of players to step up.
“She’s kind of an x-factor for us,” Turner Thorne said of Sanders. “She had some games where we got to give her some great opportunities and she really has done well, so I just feel like she’s a key for us…she has just done a great job with just bringing good energy and playing within herself.”
For Sanders, the decision to attend ASU came down to the camaraderie that she witnessed as a high school player trying to make a decision on where to continue her basketball career.
“When I was getting recruited, I was like ‘they are all a family,’” Sanders said of ASU’s team. “The family vibe that’s here, I loved it and I still love it.”
While Sanders is a part of the ASU family now, she was a part of another family during her high school career in Fresno.
At Clovis West, Sanders played alongside a star-studded senior class, and she is not the only player from her alma mater succeeding at the Division I level.
With the Golden Eagles, Sanders played with Sarah Bates, Megan Anderson, Danae Marquez and Tess Amundsen. Anderson and Marquez are both teammates at San Jose State while Amundsen is an adversary of the two in the Mountain West Conference at Boise State.
Additionally, Bates is currently in the Big West Conference playing for UC Santa Barbara and she is second on the team in scoring, averaging 10.3 points per game in her freshman campaign.
Nevertheless, Sanders has found her own comfort zone with her new teammates while playing alongside a core group of players in the backcourt, including ASU sophomore guards Reili Richardson, Kiara Russell and Robbi Ryan.
“She is awesome,” Richardson said of Sanders. “She brings us energy, she rebounds and she is really tough.”
Although Sanders has settled in nicely both on and off campus, there is one thing she misses most while she is in Tempe: her dog Cody.
Earlier this season, Sanders had her german shepherd-pit bull mix in her dorm room. However, pets are not allowed in the dorms and Sanders was forced to part ways with Cody.
Sanders’ roommate is her freshman counterpart on the ASU roster, Eva Rubin, and the whole team was struck by Cody’s departure.
“I miss him,” Sanders said. “He was our team dog. We all played with him and we all loved him … Everyone misses Cody. He was a good little addition to our little family.”
Cody turned five months old last Friday, when ASU played at Stanford. Needless to say, ASU will miss a major part of its team with Cody’s absence.
As for Sanders’ action on the court, she will likely continue to get valuable playing time as a freshman in an elite Pac-12 conference, supplementing an ASU lineup that has been hindered with injuries as of late,
“Whether Bre Sanders plays five minutes for us or 15 minutes for us, it’s huge,” Turner Thorne said. “As coaches, we need to let her play through things and keep growing and developing. She’s a great kid. She’s got a great attitude and she brings great energy. Her teammates love her…we need her.”
