Valley Christian snatched up a CCS Division II title and came just eight points shy of a NorCal Championship win as well. The Warriors are no stranger to postseason play, and they counted on seniors Trinity Stark and Katie Mason, and junior Nyah Willis to do it. But there was one more piece to the puzzle, a plucky guard with a sweet shooting touch who ended up first on the team in scoring with 13.5 points per game. That player is our CCS Sophomore of the Year, Fallon Dexheimer.

“She’s a tremendous threat from long range and it opened up the four and gave us driving lanes as well,” Valley Christian coach Chris McSwain said. “She’s super coachable and she listens to every detail. Her instinct as a shooter she innately has.”

In the CCS title game – a strange affair in which a power outage caused the contest to be played at two different gyms – she led the Warriors with team highs in points (18) and rebounds (eight). In the state semifinal versus Montgomery, she struggled from the field but made up for it at the line, converting eight of 10 foul shots to help ensure a 54-51 victory. Her regular season included a 26-point output versus Pinewood and a 24-point total against Sacred Heart Cathedral. From January on, she had double figures in 16 of 19 contests. By season’s end, she’d made 35 percent of her three-point attempts, and despite a modest frame pulled down four rebounds per night.

As a freshman, Dexheimer played on a senior-dominated team and averaged 4.4 points per game. This season, her scoring went up in part due to more opportunities, but also because of more efficient shooting: her three-point and free-throw percentages rose six and 26 percent, respectively.

“It was really her working hard all summer long, getting her confidence where she could be the go-to scorer” McSwain noted when asked about the improvement from her first year to her second.

Dexheimer, who McSwain comes from a “really grounded family that is all about hard work and focus,” and is a “4.0-type of student", already has goals for next year: shoot 40 percent from three and 85 percent from the line. It’s also to meet the coaching staff’s challenge of what McSwain calls “four-level scoring” – to finish in the paint with contact and create her shot off the dribble – adding to her repertoire as a slasher and ability to catch and shoot.

She was one of two sophomores named to the WCAL Second Team (none made the First Team), and next year will have an opportunity to step up her contributions even more. After all, consider this: in her freshman year, she had double figures against a WCAL opponent just once; this season, she did so all but once.

Other players considered for this award include Terra Nova’s Kenady Armstrong, St. Ignatius’ Madelene Ennis, Scotts Valley’s Ella Giguiere, and St. Ignatius’s Rachel Harvey.

NOTE: We would like to thank our media partners, coaches, parents, players and fans for contributing photos for our all-section features. We salute all of the players that have made this a wonderful season of CCS basketball.