In August, Cottonwood Middle School and its Quad City League opponents around Prescott agreed to push back the start of their basketball season until the third week of January.
“Football season always goes late,” said Cottonwood Middle School head coach Scott Sanderlin, whose brother, Bill, is athletic director for the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District. “He was thinking, why not have the boys start after Christmas?”
But Saturday, Dec. 13 — two days after the Lobos girls basketball teams ended their season — both Bill and Scott Sanderlin just couldn’t resist a sneak peek at the Lobos A team, as it swept four games in a tournament at CMS with no championship, no trophy and not even a stopped clock outside of the final two minutes of each game.
“It was a bit of a surprise,” Scott Sanderlin said. “[Bill] had a plan, but he didn’t know who was going to be showing up or not. He let me know a couple of weeks ago.”
Four teams agreed to play by different rules in response to Bill Sanderlin’s all-call invitation — Camp Verde and Page middle schools, the Clarkdale-Jerome School and Tuba City Boarding School.
Outside of the final two minutes, there was no foul shooting in any of the games and no player could foul out. Any shooting foul automatically resulted in two points, while any non-shooting foul awarded the fouled team one point and the ball out of bounds.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Dec. 17, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
