SLO High girls basketball celebrates best season in at least 3 decades
Completing a perfect 10-0 league season and racking up the best overall team win total in at least three decades, San Luis Obispo High’s girls basketball team celebrated its first league championship in 22 years (since 2003) with a 50-37 win over Lompoc on Tuesday.
The Tigers (25-4, 10-0 Sunset League) eclipsed a school record for wins in a season — 24 — dating back to at least 1995 when SLO won a CIF championship. The Tigers also won 24 games in 2019.
SLO Coach Dan Monroe said his players have completely bought into the team philosophy and play with competitiveness throughout each game, leading to the team’s overall success.
“In the 14 years that I’ve coached girls, I haven’t had a group that’s more connected than this group, on and off the court,” Monroe said. “This is the hardest-working group from one through 13, from the top to the bottom of the order. I can’t think of one game where I have had to question their work ethic.”
Monroe added that the team believes in each other and the coaches completely.
“They genuinely, truly trust each other and they all trust the coaches too,” Monroe said. “I’ve had years where I can get about 90% of the kids to buy in, but that you then you have that one or two that just for whatever reason, you can’t get them to trust you.”
Monroe said that even a couple of players can “rub off on a negative way with the whole group,” but this year the unity has been unparalleled.
“All 13 girls really trust and believe in our coaches and what we’re trying to give them to be successful, and they try to execute it to the best of their ability,” Monroe said.
The Tigers have been led by junior Bailey Hartford, who came into Tuesday’s final regular season game averaging 19.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.5 steals and 2.3 assists.
Junior Jennifer Stambaugh is putting up season stats of 11.6 points, 8.1 rebounds 2.2 steals 1.1 blocks (prior to Tuesday’s game).
SLO County teams were set to open CIF Central Section playoffs on Friday, with brackets expected to be announced Wednesday.
This story was originally published February 11, 2025 at 11:57 PM.
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