Every other week, South Shore’s VCU-bound senior Jenice Winter, one of the city’s top girls basketball players, takes us into her life and times. In this exclusive diary for NYPost.com, Winter chronicles South Shore’s quest to win its first PSAL Class AA city title after making the Garden two of the last three years.
Last week before the Bertgraum game I had one goal and that was to win. All week I kept envisioning the last three games from the past three years. I could vividly remember the tears, the sobs, that were in the locker room on those days. I just didn’t want to feel that way especially at our home, but I also knew that even if we did beat them we weren’t winning anything.
We put a new defense in just for the Bergtraum game. Coach (Anwar Gladden) stressed the game plan Wednesday in practice. So when we started to scrimmage if we allowed the guards to drive we had to do five pushups, any second chances we had to do five pushups. We did so many pushups our arms almost fell off.
After practice I received a text from another senior [Radasha Pope]. She told me that she got cleared (injury) and that she could play on Friday. We were all so happy because we knew how badly she wanted to play this game.
After practice last Thursday I decided to call a meeting with all the seniors. We talked about setting the tone from the start of the game and just playing hard.
On my way home that night the tears that I shed kept replaying in my mind over and over again. On Friday I went to 7a.m. workouts and put up a lot of shots until about 8 a.m. After that I went to school.
In school all my teachers, the security guards and my friends were like, you better win today. One of the security guards told me if we don’t win that he wasn’t going to let us in the building anymore. But all day in school I just kept thinking about the game.
After school was over I felt a little nervous. Right at that moment I received a three-way phone call from my mother and my father. They just told me to play my heart out and no matter win or lose they’ll be proud of me.
Even after that I still felt nervous. As I was getting dressed I receive a text message my brother. He texted me a quote from [Notre Dame star] Skylar Diggins that said, “Pressure can make diamonds or burst pipes.” After reading that message I didn’t feel nervous anymore.
During warmups all I kept thinking about was just to play hard and set the tone. So when it was time for the jump ball I felt ready. As soon as that ball went in the air all I thought was “game time.”
From the gate we played good defense, we were talking on everything. We took our time on offense. We were looking good for the first three quarters. At the start of the fourth quarter, we continued to do the same until the middle of the fourth with about four minutes left.
[Bergtraum guard Shequana Harris] had hit two big 3s that tied up the game. Immediately I had a flash back from all the games in the past. Every time they made a big play we would have paniced, or got upset, but this time we kept our cool.
Next thing we know on a good ball reversal Aaliyah [Cooley] hit a big 3 to put us back on top. After that we went scored the next five points and won the game.
After the game I felt good, but not satisfied. It felt good to beat them but we didn’t win anything but just a game. We didn’t win a championship or anything. Then I’d be excited beyond words.
But it did give us some confidence as a team. We always knew that we could have beaten them but, we never knew when.
It was good to know it was that day.
Check back with Jenice Winter every other Thursday during the season. Her next diary will run Dec. 29.