Mingus Union High School’s boys basketball team has enjoyed a solid start to 2018, winning all three of its games and six of its last seven overall.
Its latest triumph came against a top Conference 2A team, No. 5-ranked Scottsdale Christian Academy, winning
76-62 at home on Thursday, Jan. 11. After the win, the Marauders [8-3, 4-1 Grand Canyon Region] shot up to No. 12 in the Arizona Interscholastic Association Conference 4A poll.
They also shot practically lights out and played intense defense in the first half. Later on, they survived an Eagles run through the third and part of the fourth quarter.
“When you get wins and you hit shots, and then the game we lost was a game where we played pretty darn good, I think we played better that game than some of the games we won. So, it was nice to get that momentum,” Marauders head coach Dave Beery said.
Scottsdale Christian [8-2, 5-0 Metro West], without three key players, went up 4-0 to start the game before both teams began to trade buckets. The Eagles were most effective when they found their spots within the Marauders’ halfcourt zone defense.
Mingus took its first lead at 9-8 when junior guard Chase Saczalski came in off the bench, drove the lane and found senior forward Alex Figy for an easy finish. After briefly trailing again, Saczalski gave his team the lead for good, hitting two three-pointers to open a 17-12 lead by the quarter’s end.
The Marauders dictated the pace in a big second quarter using their full-court pressing and trapping defense. They went on a 13-0 run in the middle of the frame to put Scottsdale Christian on its heels.
Mingus senior forward Michael Bryan hit two shots, junior forward Colton Sorensen blocked a shot and senior guard Bryce Cramer hit a three, forcing an Eagles timeout.
The pause in play did not stop the momentum as Saczalski hit back-to-back triples, with a Figy block on Eagles junior forward Ethan Spry in between. Saczalski had 16 first-half points, and Mingus led 44-26 heading into the locker room.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who are weapons,” Beery said. “We saw Chase in the first half, he was on fire. He’s been solid, but he hasn’t had a night where he’s just explosive. He really shot the heck out of the ball, which we all know he’s capable of doing, so it’s good to see that tonight.”
The hosts continued to push the pace in the third quarter. However, the defense did not carry over from the first half, and Scottsdale Christian began to chip away.
It went on a 19-5 scoring run through most of the quarter to pull within eight at 57-49. The Eagles’ momentum carried them to within three points at the start of the fourth at 57-54. Eagles senior guard Eddie Cardona made a triple to start the quarter, then got to the foul line.
“Our body language was awful, and so I said, ‘Hey we’ve got to pick up our body language, we should be excited to be in this game,’” Beery said. “All of a sudden we were playing scared, we weren’t excited anymore, we were afraid of losing. So, I just wanted us to get the energy back, the people on the bench talking, encouraging, communicating on the court and basically play with some energy.”
Minus Sr forward Martin Soria makes it 68-58 in closing minutes #MaraudersSports pic.twitter.com/lMesropRQw
— Daniel Hargis (@d_harg) January 12, 2018
The Marauders did get going, and Figy brought the energy out of the crowd with a transition dunk to regain a 10-point advantage at 64-54. The possessions got longer, and the Eagles never got closer than 10.
“It was really nice, it shows that we can keep our composure because a lot of times teams, when that happens when they make runs, they fall apart. We did a little bit, but then we bounced back, which is good,” Mingus junior guard Chaz Taylor said.
Mingus had another pivotal game as it returned to Grand Canyon Region play on Tuesday, Jan. 16. It hosted Prescott High School, with which it is tied for first at 4-1. The Badgers won 75-69 in the first matchup on Dec. 6.
A win would eliminate the head-to-head tiebreaker between the teams, and a loss would hurt the Marauders’ chances at winning the region, needing help from other teams to beat the Badgers.
Results were unavailable at press time.
