The No. 14 seeded Mingus Union High School boys basketball team fell to No. 19 Peoria High School 96-82 in a state tournament play-in game at home on Friday, Feb. 9.
The Marauders [13-6, 9-3 Grand Canyon Region] led at halftime before giving up a season-high 29 points in the third quarter.
“It was a fast-paced game. They were a pretty athletic team, and we played the pace we wanted to play,” Mingus head coach Dave Beery said. “It was the fast pace. I actually thought they played really good defense in the second half, but we scored 40 points in the second half. We had some guys make some great offensive plays and so did they.”
A string of turnovers led to Peoria’s second-quarter scoring run that cut a double-digit lead down to one,
42-41, at the break. From there, Peoria began to pull away through the final two quarters.
With Mingus junior guard Chaz Taylor and senior forward Alex Figy in foul trouble in the second half, the hosts were forced to play a zone defense and had trouble with the Panthers inside. Peoria senior forward Knot Anyieth had a team-high 25 points, and sophomore guard Isaac Monroe’s outside shooting gave him 19.
“They started getting into the teeth of our zone a little bit and figuring out our rotations,” Beery said. “I just think we weren’t big enough that we could play them man-to-man because even in the zone they definitely had a big size advantage and took advantage of it inside.”
It was the highest scoring game the Marauders had been in all season, with junior guard Chase Saczalski scoring 34 points behind seven three-pointers.
The loss ended the team’s season, and Beery said he was frustrated that for a second straight season off-court decision making affected the team. It was, though, a positive season overall.
The team did not qualify for a state play-in game last year, and this year was the only team to beat Flagstaff High School twice in the region. It lost only three region games.
“I’m really proud of the guys. We definitely had a season that exceeded our expectations. Coming out of summer ball I’d have been happy with being over .500,” Beery said. “The one thing we knew was the way our section was, we could be competitive in it. I didn’t feel there was any team in our section that was 15 to 20 points better than us, and it was really competitive and we came out on top most of the time.
“It was a super competitive section and a fun group of kids to coach.”
