After losing to the No. 3-ranked Prescott Badgers on Feb. 9, the Mingus Union High School boys basketball team won its last home game of the season against the Flagstaff Eagles 57-51, maintaining the Marauders No. 2 spot in the conference.
“I think we’ve had the best record Mingus has had … since 2016,” senior Bransen Phillips said following the senior night game. “So basically 10 years.”
The Marauders have gone 12-5 in the 4A conference, and won all non-conference games. The team is ranked No. 14 in the state. The Marauders beat the Eagles 56-40 about two weeks prior.
“I’m just glad it’s over,” Head Coach Matt Hudson said. “We had a bad first quarter.”
The score at the end of the first quarter was 17-6, with the Eagles in the lead.
“We switched defenses,” Hudson said. “Played some two-three zone, switched what our coverages were on defense.”
He said the team normally uses man-to-man defense, but the switch worked for them against Flagstaff for the remainder of the game.
“We had a JV kid come in off the bench, [junior] Jacob Ruiz, who would be a varsity kid if he hadn’t torn his ACL,” Hudson said. “He’s come back from a lot, come back and gave us a huge lift in the second quarter.”
By half time, the Marauders hung just under the Eagles’ score at 25-22, before it took the lead in the third quarter, ending it with a score of 41-33.
This is Hudson’s third year as coach and fourth year with the team. He was the freshman coach when the seniors were freshman, so he’s worked with them all four years.
“I think [our biggest improvement] is just as a team,” senior Stone Durkalec said. “Because we’ve been playing for so long together, and we’ve played like a couple hundred games from our freshman year to now. So, I think all of it has just come together for us.”
Senior Ethan Baird said he’s seen himself and all of his fellow athletes grow outside of the team as well.
“It’s not even about basketball, [but] just as a person,” he said. “Learning discipline and showing up to work every day, even if you don’t want to, even if you’re tired.”
While the road from their freshman year built the team and the players, they said this season was filled with highlights and morale victories as well as physical ones.
“We had a 10-game win streak,” Phillips said “We won the Payson invitation, the Mike Barr Memorial.”
The six-game tournament in early January started off the year strong for the Marauders, coming out of it with six wins. Out of nine regular season games played in January, the Marauders lost to only the Coconino Panthers, who were ranked No. 1 in the region and No. 7 in the state, on Jan. 22.
“I probably spent more time with these seniors than I’ve spent with my family over the last four years, literally,” Hudson said. “So it’s just sad to see them go.”
The last regular season game against American Leadership Academy — Gilbert North on Thursday, Feb. 12, ended favorably for the Marauders, ending 59-45.
The Marauders will host a state play-in game on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. against the No. 23 seed.
