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DANVILLE — They wore yellow T-shirts on the court and in the stands Friday night.
There were hugs, memories shared and then a basketball game.
“Lemmon Strong.”
That was the rallying cry for a Monte Vista community mourning the loss of beloved girls basketball coach Jim Lemmon, who died Thursday after a battle with cancer that began last summer. He was 58.
The players’ parents were notified Thursday night in an email from athletic director Andy Popper and the team met Friday morning to decide whether to play its game later that night against Carondelet.
The call was easy.
The girls wanted to get on the court.
“We knew that’s what coach Jim would have wanted us to do,” sophomore center Sarah Brans said. “He always told us to never give up and to play no matter what. He was a very competitive person.”
There was a moment of silence in honor of Lemmon before the game, same as at other venues across the East Bay Athletic League on Friday night.
Shortly before tip-off, Jack Kennedy, Lemmon’s successor and friend, said he did not know what to expect from the players because the previous 24 hours had been so emotional for them.
Turns out, the girls were ready.
They did everything right in the first few minutes, opening a 12-2 cushion.
“They were pumped,” Kennedy said.
But Carondelet, a traditional East Bay power, picked up its intensity on defense, took control of the boards and got the ball to 3-point sharpshooter Ann Bonderer, who hit five from beyond the arc to finish with 17 points.
The Cougars (11-11) grabbed the lead in the third quarter and widened the advantage to 48-38 two minutes into the fourth period.
“Towards the end — and I told them in here — I think was the emotions of the day,” Kennedy said. “Yesterday finding everything out. They’re teenagers and you just never know how they’re going to respond to a situation as bad as our situation was.”
Monte Vista (16-6) didn’t go down without a final punch.
And it was a whopper, too.
After falling 10 points behind, the Mustangs reeled off an 11-0 run, the final basket a step-back 3-pointer by sophomore Alexis Woodson, to take a 49-48 lead with 1:52 left.
“It was a great shot,” Brans said. “But the other team was on fire, too.”
Megan Dickert sank two foul shots with 1:22 remaining to reclaim the lead for Carondelet. Two free throws by Kiana Wannomae with 8.4 seconds on the clock and another by Megan Dickert five seconds later iced it.
On an emotional day, Monte Vista fell just short of victory.
Final: Carondelet 53, Monte Vista 49.
The Monte Vista players returned to the locker room, consoled one another and got some praise from Kennedy.
Brans led Monte Vista with 14 points. Woodson finished with 10.
“I told them I was extremely proud of the effort that they gave,” Kennedy said. “Whether we won the game or not, they gave effort — and that’s all you can ask for. There’s a lot of teams I know that I don’t think could have put forth the effort under the same circumstances.”
Lemmon took over the Monte Vista program last season. Before then, he coached Castro Valley for a decade, leading the Trojans to 33 wins and the North Coast Section Division I championship in 2015-16.
Last week, Lemmon was recognized by the NCS as its girls basketball honor coach.
“I’ve known Jim for about 20 years,” Kennedy said. “We were both cops together. Not in the same organization, but we worked some cases together.”
Outside of law enforcement, the two competed against one another when Kennedy coached at Moreau Catholic and Lemmon was at Castro Valley.
Kennedy later joined Lemmon’s Castro Valley staff and then followed him to Monte Vista.
“We just were great friends,” Kennedy said. “He’s compassionate. He’s a teacher. He wants the girls to succeed. Whether it’s on the floor in basketball or in the classroom, he wants them to become successful citizens and have great careers. He was a motivator in that direction. I admired him. I loved his qualities and how he dealt with the kids and how he just did everything.
“If somebody wanted a scholarship, he was calling everybody in the world to try and get them something.”
The final team Lemmon coached gave back Friday night with a performance some might say embodied the coach’s spirt.
It didn’t stop fighting.
“Under the circumstances, I think he would have been extremely proud,” Kennedy said.