The rest of the season is canceled for the El Camino College Women’s Basketball team due to fewer players being available for game nights.

The Warriors started the season with nine healthy players. They went down to seven players in their last game and now only have four players available.

Due to safety concerns about overworking players and fighting through injuries, the athletic department decided on Jan. 10 to cancel the remainder of the games.

A total of 18 scheduled games remaining in the season had to be scrapped. The Warriors opened with a 1-6 record, losing their first six and winning the last.

The first game of the season was a 96-37 loss against Pierce College, then a 17-71 loss to Fullerton College, an 82-33 loss to Rio Hondo College, an 85-37 loss to Irvine Valley College and an 81-31 loss to Palomar College.

The Warriors won their last game of the season against College of the Desert, 54-38.

“It was hard getting to that point, your drive as a coach is to get to the season, that’s the fun part… that’s where you see the real progress with your players and team and the work that you put in,” coach Steve Shaw said.

“A lot of that [work] had gone in already… Then now all of a sudden, the girls aren’t able to enjoy the fun part of the game by going and playing games,” Shaw said.

The women’s basketball team has struggled to field a healthy amount of players for the past couple of seasons. Shaw recalls finishing with “six or seven players” last year and playing multiple games with only five players.

Shaw said “there was always concern” last year that somebody could get hurt.

Sophomore guard Teena Ponce said she was not surprised by the season getting dropped.

“Definitely bummed at first but could kinda see it coming the way people were quitting [and having injuries],” Ponce said.

Red-shirt sophomore guard Shana Moten came into the season rehabbing an ACL injury last year.

An ACL injury is a tear or sprain in the ACL ligament, one strong band of tissue that connects the thighbone to the shinbone at the knee.

“I was already kind of recovering from my ACL injury. So it was a bummer because that was like my last couple of games I could play until I had to, like really focus on my career…” Moten said. “But the [basketball] staff, the athletic staff was very helpful figuring out our next moves for that news,” Moten said.

Sophomores of the women’s basketball team got the opportunity to finish the rest of the season at Los Angeles Southwest College and join its women’s team.

Yumika Sugahara, Moten and Ponce all accepted the opportunity and were grateful to get a chance to play in their last season as sophomores.

“Definitely my parents being my biggest supporters, they were bummed that season got canceled. But then, given the opportunity to play somewhere else, they got to watch me play and finish off my sophomore season,” Ponce said.

It was an important decision for the sophomores because it would determine whether they continue their career in basketball.

“I guess it affected it where I had to really decide whether I was done playing or if I was gonna transfer, and [the athletic staff] helped me figure that out,” Moten said.

Moten said it was a tough decision because she wanted to play with her original team. “I’ve spent like, almost two, three years here. So I wanted to end it out with coach Shaw,” she said.

Despite having no competitions to play for, the Warriors still practice on Mondays and Wednesdays, working to come back next season and using the extra practice time to their advantage.

“It’s motivated everyone in our program to work harder and to get back on track next year, reenergized and remotivated,” Shaw said.

Shaw has emphasized recruiting the “last couple of years” to increase the roster number but is now taking a different strategy to make sure he has a committed team next year.

“We’ve recruited hard, we spend a lot of time… It’s not just that, it’s trying to evaluate the commitment of players [a little] earlier on so that we are bringing in players that are fully committed to the team, the process and the sacrifices [that has to take place],” Shaw said.