Since the beginning of the season the Fresno City College Women’s Basketball set a goal for themselves, they wanted to make it to the state tournament this season. With about two weeks left in the regular season it looks as though they are that much closer to reaching that goal.

The FCC women’s basketball team currently holds a 24-4 overall record and is at the top of the CentralValley Conference ranks with a perfect 8-0 record in conference competition. Among all the factors thatcan receive credit for the success that the team is having Head Coach Brian Tessler feels that the teamhas been successful because of, “Players, we have to have players that have a strong work ethic and are dedicated.”

The hard work and dedication have been translated into a variety of accomplishments this season already. Currently the Rams are on top of the CVC, they are ranked 4th in the state’s Top 20, and are thetop ranked team in the North Top 15. But according to Tessler these numbers and standings do not take attention away from the team’s main focus. The main focus is, “To get to the state tournament, it never changes.”

In the CVC the Rams have dominated on the way towards a perfect conference record.

The Rams currently have two of their starters as the No.2 (Lacey Gibbons,) and No.3 (Marlee Wilkinson,) Points Per Game (PPG) scorers in the conference. With the momentum that the team currently has

Wilkinson says, “It feels good to have momentum at the end of the season going into the playoffs.”

Momentum that has seen the team not lose a single game since before the winter break.

Even with the team at the top of lists and rankings all over the state the publicity does not play a factor in the teams mindset and the way in which they function.

According to Tessler the ratings don’t mean a whole lot. “They don’t mean a whole lot other than I know where they are for the purposes of playoffs, I don’t talk about rankings with the players, I don’t want them to get caught up in it.”

Statistically the Rams are also reaching astounding numbers. They are averaging 89 PPG on offense while allowing only 66 points on defense. Sophomore Guard Gibbons says, I feel like we are doing well but I feel we need to improve a little bit, but we are on our way to winning our conference and hopefully doing better than we did last year in the playoffs.”

As far as the playoffs are concerned the Rams are poised to receive the No.4 seed and get a home playoff game if they win-out the rest of the regular season as well as win the CVC. The Rams are a mere two games as of now from clinching the CVC title and their No.4 seed.

With the playoffs around the corner there are many things that the team is doing in order to ensure that this run at the playoffs is a successful one. According to Tessler, ” We are trying to do a better job of  rebounding, We want to get better at some of the things that we have weakness in and try to coral that and see if we can improve on that as we get ready.”