I caught a couple more games of the Northwest Desert Classic out at Pusch Ridge Tuesday afternoon. I saw the boys from Edwin Parr play last night and I promised them I would try to watch the girls play also.

They played Ironwood Ridge in an up tempo game.

The Nighthawks missed their first 6 shots but the shots eventually started to fall and head coach Don Dickinson was able to spread out playing time pretty evenly the rest of the way.

Ironwood Ridge has a student population of about 1,900 and the town of Athabasca, Canada has a population of about 2,500. It is a battle that head coach Wade Hicks welcomes.

“I give a lot of thanks to our coach. He believes in playing up as much as possible before we get into provincial play,” said Shannon Demko. Shannon’s daughter is Marissa, a senior guard for the Angels.

“We take an international trip every other year. We went to Los Angeles two years ago.”

Tucson?

That was the question the Nighthawks girls asked the players from Canada. As we are all aware, many teenagers feel there is nothing exciting about Tucson. “They asked why we picked Tucson,” said junior forward Amy Kobzey. “They said there was nothing to do here but I’m excited. It beats four feet of snow.”

Kobzey’s skills were admirable and she could have played for many of the teams in the tournament. Her 9 points lead her team. Demko, Tara Gustafson, and Shay Weymouth were the other leaders for the team.

Besides Marissa, Amy’s mom Debbie and Tara’s father Grant made the trip down.

The team plans on attending the Phoenix Suns/Boston Celtics game and will also watch the Arizona women play at McKale Center.

Ironwood Ridge had some familiar names on the court. Volleyball stars Autumn Sanford and Brianna Hughes used their skill and size to their advantage and Brooke Seavitt handled most of the point guard duties.

Seavitt is the starting goalie for the soccer team and her coaches have developed a schedule so she can play both sports. She told me she had her goalie gloves in her bag just in case.

Canyon del Oro took on the girls of Mingus in the second game.

Chelsea Canham controlled the lane on defense and Mel Morris controlled the scoreboard as the Lady Dorados beat the Marauders 42-23.

Canham recorded 8 blocked shots as Mingus missed their first 20 shots of the game to put themselves in a 12-1 hole after the first period. They didn’t score a basket until four minutes were left in the second quarter. “I like to have fun with blocking shots. I try to take advantage of my size when I can,” said Canham. “It feels good to build something as a team.”

Canyon del Oro is not the same team that won the state championship last year. All starters are gone but they found a gem in sophomore Morris who scored 19 points. “Our team played well today. I’m working on my dribble and it paid off,” said Morris.

CDO was up 31-15 after the third quarter but Mingus scored the first six points in the fourth to cut the lead to 10 with 6:30 left in the game but Canham scored 4 points and Morris poured in 7 to open the game up.

Visit Northwestdesertclassic.com for game times scheduled for Wednesday at Mountain View and Pusch Ridge.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 7:22 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.