Neither basketball team at Mingus Union High School has liked early exposure to sectional play.
While the girls have not won a game since their Nov. 30 opener against Northland Preparatory Academy, the boys were 2-1 in non-tournament play before Bradshaw Mountain High School dropped them, 74-54, in their Division III, Section IV opener Tuesday, Dec. 15.
After head coach Dave Beery’s boys host Winslow High School, both teams go back on the road for another shot at getting back in the sectional race Friday, Dec. 18, at Washington High School.
Boys Basketball
Although junior forward Miles Tapija is out indefinitely and “a lot of people are sick right now,” Beery said, the Marauders remain unable to solve the Bears, losing their ninth straight to their Prescott Valley rival going back to 2009 — and “played awful” in the process, he added.
“We’ll need to be much better,” he added. “Bradshaw played harder, smarter and more disciplined.”
Senior guard Ashton Loring was the bright spot with 18 points, one-third of his team’s point total in its third-lowest scoring output through 11 games.
“[He] also created quite a bit,” Beery said. “He had a few bad [turnover]s, but I think everyone had some bad ones.”
Coming off a 37-point effort against St. George, Utah, high school Pine View in their final regular-season tournament game, Beery knows that the Marauders cannot afford any more off nights if they hope to get to the only tournament that counts at State.
“We dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t dig ourselves out of it,” Beery said after the 21-point loss Saturday, Dec. 12, at Page High School, in which MUHS scored just three second-quarter points and went into halftime down 14. “They executed and shot pretty well.
“Looking at our section overall, there aren’t a lot of games you can circle and say we win or lose them by 20.”
After his second straight 20-point loss, though, he looks for a more competitive game against a Winslow team Beery last saw Dec. 5 in Sedona at the Red Rock Hoops Classic.
The Marauders, like the Bulldogs, suffered their only loss in five tournament games that day at Sedona Red Rock High School. Their luck turned sour a game before Winslow’s, as a 24-foot buzzer-beating three-point shot by Prescott High School senior Tyler Bell kept MUHS out of the tournament finals.
“We knew he was their best player,” Beery recalled. “We had players there. He just hit a heck of a shot.
“They had to get over it pretty quick[ly], and they did.”
MUHS recovered later in the day to beat Blue Ridge, 77-71, to finish in the top six, and also managed to eke out wins over “talented, skilled” Monument Valley and Tuba City high schools in the Page tournament.
The latter win, Beery added, came without the services of Tapija and senior guard Evan Snyder, who missed the tournament’s final two games with a bruised kneecap.
“We managed to beat Tuba City with a pretty limited lineup,” Beery said. “We had played 10 games in eight days. Considering how tired we were, I was extra happy with how we played in that tournament.
In between their tournaments Dec. 8 and 9, the Marauders scored wins on back-to-back nights over Page and North Canyon high schools. Another 18-point effort by Loring and 14 from senior forward Gerardo Angulo helped beat the Sand Devils at home, 59-53. The next night, senior Fabian Navarro poured in 20 and Snyder, in his return to the lineup, added 14 in a nine-point road win.
“I think we learned that we can compete with anybody if we play our style of basketball,” Beery concluded. “We know where we need to be; it’s just about consistency — doing the right things the same way.”
Girls Basketball
Win or lose in Phoenix on Dec. 18, the end of the week will relieve new head coach Bri Young, whose varsity can finally enjoy some tournament exposure after getting thrown into the sectional fire in three of its first six games.
“I feel like they trust me more than they did the first couple games,” she said. “I took over with a month until the season, when I was still coaching volleyball. I take it one game at a time right now, or I get super-overwhelmed.”
Although they enjoyed their share of warm, fuzzy feelings after a 50-17 win Nov. 30, no record cold could extinguish the heat felt Dec. 8 by the Marauders after a 75-4 home loss to Page.
“They were really shy,” Young said. “They weren’t putting enough pressure on the ball.
“Our offense is slow-going [and] struggling, when they can run it. They weren’t real sure about the offense, but the problem is not the plays: We get pressed a lot, we panic, and we can’t even get into our offense.”
Compared to that experience, a 44-39 loss in Peoria to Sunrise Mountain High School practically felt like a win, especially after being down 22-6 at halftime.
“They were afraid to shoot,” Young said. “I told them to just fire away, and they came back in the second half, just shot and they went in. That was pretty cool.”
The approach certainly helped senior guard Vivian Koeppe heat up. She led the comeback with eight third-quarter points in a 12-point night.
The Marauders forced overtime with the Mustangs but faded in the face of two three-pointers by sophomore guard Julia Starr, who went scoreless in the fourth quarter under pressure from MUHS junior Destiny Razo.
“It was a nice little confidence booster,” Young said. “I wish we could’ve pulled it off.”
Young plans to continue mixing up defensive looks, so better ball pressure and getting off shots quicker are two of her goals heading into the holiday break. That will send the MUHS girls to two straight tournaments, beginning with two games Monday, Dec. 21, at the Lady Titan Winter Hoops Classic in Scottsdale.
The Marauders open at 4:30 p.m. against Boulder Creek High School, from Anthem, before playing host Arcadia High School at 7 p.m.
For full Mingus Union High School boys tournament results, please see the Wednesday, Dec. 16, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
