Over the past six years, the Mingus Union High School girls basketball program has struggled to a 12-12 season and five others of seven wins or fewer.
After two years of waiting, Briana Young, daughter of long-time Marauders head baseball and football coach Bob Young, was hired to change that.
“The first time I got this job, they asked me to be a co-head coach with Art Moncibaez,” recalled Young, the freshman volleyball coach who was hired as the sole replacement for Moncibaez’s son, Dave, at the end of October. “So I did have the job two years ago.
“I said, ‘Time’s on my side. I can wait.’ I figured he’d be gone when his granddaughter graduated. This is not the way I wanted the job, but this is how it happened, so better late than never, I guess.”
The Marauders have not enjoyed a season over .500 since Bob Young’s only season as their coach in 2009, leading them to 23 wins as well as a Final Four appearance in the state tournament.
“He’s coaching the JV and helping me out with varsity,” said Young, who coached the freshman team that year, just two years after graduating from MUHS. “Dad doesn’t seem to know how to say no, either. I’ve been carrying the same playbook around for the last eight years.”
In her first competition Friday, Nov. 20, at Camp Verde High School, Young re-introduced the defensive playbook her father inherited from the previous Marauders coach, Will Rider, to win in 2009.
“There’s some half-court pressing [and] trapping,” she said. “It’s a little more complicated. I like to mix it in with a zone and man-to-man to really confuse a lot of people. So it’s old to me, new to them.”
The results of those preseason scrimmages, although no official scores were kept, were an easy win over Seligman High School and a tie of CVHS, according to Young — “which was pretty good, considering I’ve had the varsity for two weeks,” she said. “It was a confidence booster for the girls.”
For the full story and girls basketball schedule, please see the Wednesday, Nov. 25, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
