Northwest Desert Classic

WHAT: 16 boys teams and 12 girls teams from the Tucson area, Yuma, Cottonwood, Phoenix, Alaska, Nevada, Sierra Vista and Canada.

WHERE: Mountain View High School & Pusch Ridge High School.

WHEN: Monday, December 28-Thursday, December 31.

Championship games: Thursday at MV Gymnasium. 3:40 girls and 5 pm boys.

Online Schedule: northwestdesertclassic.com

I saw four games today featuring some of the best talent in Tucson and took in a game featuring a team from Canada.

The first game was a good one between the girls of Pusch Ridge against Sabino where Pusch Ridge looks to emphasize defense over scoring.

Pusch Ridge won 34-28 on a morning where both teams found it difficult to make free throws and baskets. Freshman Noelle Soltero scored 9 points and Senior Cheyenne Link put in 11 to lead the Lions to the victory.

Anna Heaton put in 8 for Sabino and Rhiannon Wato added 6.

“I felt pretty good about the game,” said Soltero. “We all came together as a team – we started to click.”

The halftime score was 26-13 in favor of Pusch Ridge and the lead was big enough to hold as they only scored 8 points in the second half.

Center Haley Christensen saw limited playing time for Pusch Ridge and was able to score late in the second quarter on a beautiful turn around but coach Lonnie Tvrdy made it point to emphasize defense for the team, “If Haley can play defense the way we need it then we will be a great team.”

“I didn’t know what to expect from this team but the defense I saw today reminded me of our other teams from the past. We didn’t have an identity until today. We need people to know their jobs and play with intensity. I’m really proud of our girls.”

Pusch Ridge won their region title 8 times in the last decade and won 4 state championships.

Pusch Ridge is a 2A school and Sabino is 4A I.

The second game featured the boys from Pusch Ridge against Mesa Westwood.

Westwood was able to hold on to the victory pulling away late to win 48-41. Spencer LeSueur put in 14 points for Mesa while Trever Cook scored 12 to lead Pusch Ridge.

Jeremy Courtney added 11 and Greg Schimke scored 10 to help keep the Lions in the game.

Pusch Ridge was up early in the first quarter but went down 12-13 entering the second. They were able to take a 3 point lead to open up the second quarter but went into the locker room down 22-19.

Pusch Ridge pulled within two points at the 5 minute mark (23-25) but Mesa would score the last 6 points to go up 33-23 to end the quarter.

They would once again close the gap to 5 after the Mesa coach was called for a technical foul with 4:34 left in the game. Schimke pulled the Lions within three points (36-39) with 1:15 left and then Courtney hit a three pointer after Mesa scored to make it 41-39 Mesa with 46 seconds left.

That was as close as they could get at Mesa started hitting free throws to preserve the win 48-41.

Schimke was the football player of the year in 2A and Cook was a first team receiver. Schimke told me he’s looking at a couple of NAIA and Division III schools in college.

Westwood is a 5A I school and Pusch Ridge is 2A.

The third game featured the St. Gregory boys against the Sabino boys at Mountain View.

Sabino pulled out a close one 42-39 as St. Gregory had plenty of chances to pull this one out.

St. Gregory went down early as Sabino’s 6’9 Senior Matt Korcheck scored 4 quick points (the second goal an emphatic dunk) but they were able to pull away to go up 16-12 as their All-Star guard Frank Mgbolu put in 5 points, Nate Grobstein scored 5 and Blake Gephart scored 4 to counter the 8 scored by Korcheck.

The halftime score was St. Gregory 29-24 over Sabino despite 16 points from Korcheck.

The third quarter was up for grabs as St. Gregory only scored 4 points and Sabino 7 and this is where St. Gregory may have lost the game going into the last quarter up 33-31.

The score was 35-35 with 5 minutes left in the game before Sabino started to pull away. Mgbolu cut the lead to 39-40 with 59 seconds left on two free throws. St. Gregory missed a three pointer with 7 seconds left and had another chance with 5 seconds left after Dimitri Chonis made one free throw for Sabino but they turned the ball over coming up the court. 42-39 Sabino.

St. Gregory is a 1A school while Sabino is a 4A I program.

The last game featured the Mountain View boys against the Edwin Parr Composite School from Athabasca, Alberta Canada.

Athabasca is some 1,940 miles from Tucson. It is not a border town by any means as it is 500 miles north of Montana. It’s about 4 degrees right now and will be below zero tomorrow. It’s about 60 degrees in Tucson.

It’s a tiny school of about 300 students and they fell victim to playing a host school in an invitational tournament with loads of talent, losing by a wide margin despite never giving up.

The team from Canada had a couple of fans cheering in the stands.

Les and Connie Wood are the grandparents to Edwin Parr’s coach Tyler Guay.

The Woods winter in Parker, Arizona and came down to watch their team play. The girls also made it down from Canada for the week. The Woods are having a good time and hope to see their team play a better game this week.

The boys will play again Tuesday morning at 10:40 against Mingus (4A II) and Tuesday night at 8:40 against Gila Ridge (5A II) of Yuma at Mountain View High School.

The girls from Canada will play Tuesday at 12:20 against Ironwood (5A II) and 5:20 against Amphi (4A II) at Pusch Ridge High School.

If you have an extra moment tomorrow it would be great to go and cheer for these teams and welcome them to our community.

Mountain View was led by Joshua Goshen, Zacch Clauson and Zach Carter. Demetris Morant was also a force for the Mountain Lions as coach Mike Parillo played his entire bench from the beginning in a classy move.

The Pacers of Edwin Parr were led by Kyle Czwil, Theoren Pieroway and Geoff Morey.

Edwin Parr would be a 2A school in Arizona and Mountain View is a 5A II program.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.