End of the Line

Pat Bell isn’t sure what life after the Tuimoloau family will be like for the Channel Islands High girls’ basketball team.

But the Raiders’ coach knows it will be different.

Chenne Tuimoloau, the youngest of three sisters to play for Channel Islands, is nearing graduation and will play her last high school game for the North team in the Ventura County senior all-star game tonight at Ventura High.

The girls’ game is scheduled for 6 p.m., followed by the boys’ game at 8.

“I’m hoping they have another one,” Bell says only half-jokingly. “It’s going to be tough playing without the Tuimoloaus.”

Channel Islands has had at least one Tuimoloau in its lineup for a decade. Dolores, Judy and Chenne, each earned All-Ventura County honors.

Dolores was Marmonte League most valuable player in 1994 and Chenne earned the honor in 1998, before Channel Islands moved to the Pacific View League in the 1998-99 season.

“We’ve all always been involved in sports,” Chenne said. “My whole family, we’re all athletes.”

The girls’ father, Junior Tuimoloau, played football at Channel Islands before graduating in 1974. He served as a Raider assistant football coach before taking his current position as an assistant at Moorpark College.

Dolores, who graduated from Channel Islands in 1994, was state champion in the shotput as a senior.

Judy, a 1997 graduate of Channel Islands, was the Raiders’ leading rebounder and shot-blocker as a senior.

But 17-year-old Chenne might be the best basketball player in the family.

“Chenne, she’s like the cream of the crop,” Dolores said. “She matured in the sport really early. She really knew a lot about the game at a young age and her maturity is what coaches fell in love with.”

Chenne, a 5-foot-10 point guard who was a four-year varsity starter, can rebound, pass and shoot three-pointers.

“I won’t ever have a point guard as good as her to coach,” said Bell, who first worked with Tuimoloau when she was a third-grader in an Oxnard youth league. “It was a treat. She knew the game inside and out.”

She learned it from her sisters.

“I grew up on basketball,” Chenne said. “It was just a part of my life, part of my religion.”

Chenne averaged 13.3 points, 6.4 rebounds and a team-leading 5.7 assists and 2.2 steals last season. She made 52 of 132 three-point shots (39.4%), helping the Raiders (19-7) to the second round of the Southern Section Division I-AA playoffs.

When she was the Marmonte MVP as a sophomore, Chenne led the league with averages of 16.4 points and 6.1 assists.

Chenne made the varsity as a freshman, when she and Judy each averaged more than 10 points.

“We were always together, me and my sisters,” Chenne said.

Chenne will follow in her sisters’ footsteps by attending college. She has committed to Cal State Northridge.

Dolores attended Ventura College and Cal State Los Angeles before transferring to Oxnard College. Judy attends Humboldt State.

“That brought a high point for me,” Chenne said of her college plans. “That was one of my goals. I didn’t want my parents to have to pay for everything.”