Little mistakes down the stretch accumulated in a 48-47 overtime loss for the No. 6 seeded Camp Verde High School girls basketball team against No. 11 Thatcher High School on Friday, Feb. 16.
The Cowboys’ season ended in the first round of the Arizona Interscholastic Association 2A State Championship against an Eagles team that went on to beat the No. 3 seed Valley [Sanders] High School in the quarterfinals.
“It was a step in the right direction. I think the kids have grown; they’ve become more seasoned as players. After their freshman year it was kind of like, ‘What’s going on here?’ They were wide-eyed and not really knowing what kind of level they were able to play at,” Camp Verde head coach Mark Showers said. “This year they kind of got a taste of that and I think especially in that playoff game and actually even talking to them about this summer and next season. Hey you pushed Thatcher to overtime and Thatcher went on and beat the third-ranked team in the state by one, that could have been you. With a little bit extra effort, and especially from a mental end, that definitely could have been you playing in the semifinals. But it didn’t go your way, so let’s not make the same mistakes, let’s step up and make some adjustments and really from a mental standpoint let’s get to work.”
It was a close game throughout as neither team held more than a three-point advantage over the other at the end of all five periods. Thatcher led 11-10 after the first and it was tied at 22 at halftime.
Thatcher, which is now on a 14-game winning streak, led 31-29 after the third and the game went to overtime with the score knotted at 42. Showers said while his team was the more talented group, it was the little things — committing fouls, missed box outs and defensive assignments and missed free throws — that did them in.
One thing that stood out from the score sheet was at the foul line; Thatcher was 15 for 22 while Camp Verde was four for five.
“When Thatcher shoots 22 free throws and we only shoot five, and they shoot over 50 percent, that’s a problem,” Showers said. “That gives us something to work on for next year. When kids are going to the line from fouls we have to be a little more cautious with reaching and those kinds of tings. We can’t give a team an advantage offensively at the free throw line and that’s really what we did, and you can’t get that back.”
Thatcher is the No. 11 seed, but proved that seeding is merely a number after defeating defending champion Valley [Sanders] 51-50 in the following day’s quarterfinal. Thatcher won the state championship two seasons ago and reached the Final Four last season as well.
Six-foot sophomore center Jacy Finley stood out for the Cowboys, finishing with a double-double with 20 points and 21 rebounds. Finley, Showers said, has come a long way this season in terms of confidence and is poised to be a force in the coming seasons as an upperclassman.
“Jacy established herself as probably the best post player in 2A. Against Sedona in the region championship she had 18 points and 21 rebounds and against Thatcher she had 20 points and 21 rebounds,” Showers said. “She was a horse and we’ve been really trying to get her to toughen up and go nose to nose with some of these real tough kids and she’s done that. She performed extremely well.”
Showers added that sophomore point guard Tanna Decker did a good job running things on the offensive end, but the biggest bright spot of the game was sophomore guard Lauren Ontiveros. Ontiveros, who had been timid all season, showed toughness at both ends of the floor and leadership in the huddle, Showers said.
Despite falling in the first round of the state tournament for a fifth year running, it was a successful season for the Cowboys, who will not lose a single player to graduation. The team finished the season 16-3 in power-point games overall and finished second in the Central Region to No. 1 seed Sedona Red Rock High School.
More than wins and losses, the team grew as a unit, leaving the mental mistakes as the biggest thing to improve upon in the offseason.
