It was not pretty, but it got the job done.
Mingus Union High School’s boys basketball team survived its own mistakes in the closing minutes of a 50-49 win over visiting Prescott High School, remaining tied for first place in the Grand Canyon Region on Tuesday, Jan. 16.
“I think if I listed five things we could do wrong, we found a few extra,” Mingus head coach Dave Beery said. “Bad fouls far from the hoop, bad shots. I mean we had the lead, all we had to do was take care of the basketball. For some reason our guys decided that was a good time to take fadeaway jump shots and stuff like that.
“Our basketball IQ was really poor tonight. I think it kept us from hopefully having it a little easier at the end.”
Coconino High School, the Marauders’ [9-3, 5-1 Grand Canyon] opponent on Saturday, Jan. 20, beat Lee Williams High School 53-38, knotting the teams atop the region at 5-1. The Panthers [10-2, 5-1] own the tiebreaker by having a better conference record.
With 2:08 left in the fourth quarter, Marauders junior guard Chaz Taylor had an acrobatic finish under the basket after getting fouled, but missed the free throw, to go up 48-46. Mingus, which has now won seven of its last eight games and four straight since the start of 2018, did not make things easier on itself, committing fouls with the Badgers [8-5, 4-2] in the bonus while taking rushed shots offensively.
Taylor drove the lane and dished to senior forward Martin Soria for a finish underneath to give his team a 50-48 lead, and Prescott senior guard Cameron Parsons hit just one of two free throws with a chance to tie. Coming out of a timeout with the crowd on its feet, Mingus had to defend during the final 30 seconds of the game, ending on a Badgers air ball.
“My stomach hurt, I was really nervous,” Mingus senior forward Michael Bryan said of the final minutes. “[The idea was] have to win, so you’ve just got to lock down, just no mistakes. It’s great, because now we’re first in the section, now we have the one-up on everyone. We’re the team to beat now. I thought we always have been but now we actually are.” 
It was a low-scoring first half as the teams headed to the locker room tied at 19. Beery said both teams were playing with pace up and down the court, but poor shot selection and turnovers resulted in sloppy play on both sides. He added that Prescott is always a tough matchup due to its greater height and length.
One Marauder who was up to the measure was senior forward Alex Figy, who scored six straight points to open the third, and grabbed key rebounds while also blocking a shot. Figy’s aggression and consistent contribution has helped the team during its recent stretch of games.
“He’s pretty reliable, you’re going to get somewhere between eight and 15 or 16 points,” Beery said. “You’re going to get some rebounds, he’s going to change a few shots, block a shot or two. He did a better job tonight of staying out of foul trouble because he’s gotten into foul trouble a lot during these last few games.”
The Marauders stuck with their full-court pressing and trapping defense. Another key run for them inflated their lead to 10 at 36-26. Bryan hit at three-pointer, Figy blocked a shot and junior guard Chase Saczalski came back to hit another three, with Bryan making a layup to finish it off.
But the hosts’ decision making in the final minutes of the third frame allowed the Badgers back into the game. Their second delay of game call resulted in a technical foul, resulting in Parsons cutting the lead to 38-34 with 1:27 left.
Bryan hit just one of three attempts from the foul line, and then Saczalski fouled Prescott senior guard Dillan Osborn far from the basket with 24 ticks remaining. Osborn hit both shots, and it was 39-36. Finally it was Parsons who hit a running three-pointer with less than a second left to tie the game with one quarter left, getting possession after a rushed Marauders possession.
“The third quarter, we had a good start, but then the last two and a half minutes were atrocious,” Beery said. “We had a chance to get a little bit of separation …. We’ve been pretty good at closing quarters this season — tonight we were awful at it.”
It was just the first of two pivotal region home games for the Marauders during the week. They host Coconino at 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, in another game with first place in the region on the line.
