The Santa Cruz Quakes AAU girls basketball club out of Scotts Valley has been an ongoing success for twenty two years and counting, making it the longest running program of its kind in the Santa Cruz area. Founded by current Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart in 1997, the club is open to all girls in Santa Cruz County and has helped hundreds of local girls basketball players hone their skills, get game experience against quality opponents, build camaraderie and have fun while travelling to tournaments around the state.
The Quakes basketball club has contributed thousands of dollars to local high schools using proceeds from hosting tournaments. All of the high schools that host tournament games receive a substantial donation to that respective school’s girls basketball program.
This season the Quakes are fielding three girls teams; a high school varsity, high school JV, and an 8th grade team. One of the many positive experiences that the Quakes provide is the opportunity to practice and play with girls from many other schools that they compete against during the high school league season. This year’s varsity team has six players from Scotts Valley High, two players from San Lorenzo Valley High, two players from Aptos High, three players from Santa Cruz High, and one player from Soquel High. The varsity team is being coached by the father-daughter duo of Greg and Grace Giguiere. The junior varsity team is being coached by the long-time local basketball shooting guru and current Soquel High School head girls basketball coach Tom Curtiss and his son Conner. The 8th grade team is being coached by current Harbor High School head girls basketball coach Keyana Stanford.
The Santa Cruz Quakes are a non-profit AAU girls basketball organization that participates in the Pacific District AAU Association Spring Tournament Series.
The Quakes organization is hosting two tournaments this year, the Surf City Slam, which is on April 13th and 14th, and the Surf City Summer Slam on June 1st and 2nd. All tournament games are played at local high school gyms and are open to the public. In addition to the two tournaments that they host, the three Quakes teams will also participate in the April 27th and 28th Salinas tournament. The teams then will travel and play in the always fun and intenseReno regional tournament on May 4th and 5th at the huge Convention Center where there may be 20 different games going on simultaneously. The Quakes will play in a one-day tournament on May 12th, at a location to be determined, and there will be one more tournament at a date and location to be announced. Please make plans to come out and support these hard working girls basketball players as they seek to win as many games and tournaments as possible while playing highly entertaining games in our local gyms against some high quality teams. For more information check the Quakes website at www.scquakes.org.
• ABOUT MARK: Mark Christensen is the local news and sports writer for My Scotts Valley. Mark is a former educator/teacher and current coach in track and field, girl’s basketball and JV football for SLV High School.