Agua Fria

On a much needed day off, I have time to reflect on the start of the season. This first week has been grueling but very rewarding. The Agua Fria Owls have played seven games in five nights and have begun the season 7-0. Of these seven games, only one has been on our home court. During stretches like these, a coach has the opportunity to see what their team is made of and capable of accomplishing. From last Tuesday to yesterday, I have had the pleasure of watching and coaching a team that takes improvement seriously. Each game brings something new for us to work on in an effort to take this team as far as they can possibly go. In the next few paragraphs, I would like to reflect on the road that we have just traveled.

On Tuesday, November 27, 2007, Agua Fria made its season debut versus a formidable Paradise Valley team. Lead by Chris McFaul and Brandon Garrett, this team has a lot of potential and gave us a tough battle before the Owls pulled out a victory behind the leadership of senior point guard, Travis Payton, for a 51-43 victory. Before tip-off, the coaches were careful to remind our players that this game would be difficult. Being the number three team puts a huge target on your back and sure enough, the Trojans came out with a lot of grit and determination to take us down. It was an exciting game that came down to the wire, but the Owls were able to maintain their composure and chalk up the first win of the season.

The very next night, the Owls played at home versus a good shooting Flagstaff team. The Eagles gave us all that we could hope for in another game that came down to the wire. In a scary moment in the first quarter, junior Aaron Altherr injured himself and had to sit for the remainder of the game. Without one of our top players and others in foul trouble, we struggled to defend and score for parts of the second half. However, the Owls showed one of the marks of a good team in pulling out a close win. Senior guard, D.J. Hamilton, locked down the Eagles best perimeter player and converted several free throws at the end of the game to give the Owls a 57-56 victory.

On Thursday night, the Owls traveled to Greenway High School to play the Demons who were riding a 6-0 start. It was a hard fought contest which went down to the final minutes. Leading the charge for the Owls were the strong senior trio of Travis Payton (who is averaging eight assists a game), D.J. Hamilton, and Jon Underwood. They were assisted off the bench by strong performances by senior Joe Garcia and juniors Kendall Pride and Jesse Flemming. Travis was able to create scoring opportunities for everyone with his penetration, and we finished well as a team. Jon and Jesse were defensive forces in the middle with Jon collecting five blocks and the duo gathering numerous rebounds. On the whole everyone played well and gave a strong defensive effort which kept the Demons on the perimeter for most of the night. We played a very good team and as the final buzzer sounded, we had a 54-50 victory.

The next day, we traveled down to the Tucson area to play in the Marana Classic. Before getting into any of the games, I would like to thank Coach Lybeck for his hospitality and for opening his beautiful facilities for our disposal. Our first game was at 1p.m. versus a very talented Rancho team from Las Vegas. This team is very athletic and has some perimeter shooters which did not seem to miss in the first half. However, we were able to show another mark of a good team and adjust to their style. At halftime, we made some switches on defense and came out strong in the second half to win the game 66-58. This game was a coming out party of sorts for junior guard Kendall Pride who in addition to defending the other teams best player for most of the second half also scored twelve points in the third quarter. After a three hour layoff, we matched up against a resilient Higley team. These kids are players who are very well coached and execute their offense. On top of that, they shot well in the first half from the perimeter. Our defense was able to keep them out of the middle and was lead by Jon Underwood's nine blocks. It seemed that everything that the Knights put up inside of fifteen feet was being sent out with a vengeance. I am proud to say that our defense picked up the intensity and finished the game strong for a 66-47 win.

After driving through a monsoon, we were able to get to the hotel to get some much needed rest. The coaches had a short team meeting in which we were able to express our pride in the boys and their efforts thus far. The meeting also gave us an opportunity to iron out any difficulties among the team. This is a special group of guys, and I was pleased to see the evolution of leaders, specifically Javier Garcia and Bryant Valencia. The next day, we traveled back to the gym for a noon tip-off against the Mustangs of Sahuarita. We lead from the very beginning and were able to get our starters some much deserved rest. Our bench is very deep and very talented. This allows us to sub constantly and get the most out of every player. In this game, juniors: Mike Silva, Chanz Walton, Nick Newberry and seniors: Nick Granville and Bryant Valencia came off the bench to contribute to our 60-45 victory. Two hours later, we were on the hardwood again to play the host of the tournament. While we struggled offensively for some reason this game, it was quite possibly our best defensive effort of this young season. We were able to hold the Tigers to single digits in three of the four quarters and contested every single shot. This was the second game where we were able to use our bench to its full potential. While everyone contributed again, this game definitely belonged to senior captain, Travis Payton. T.P. did everything well this game and could have finished with double digit assists again if half of our shots in close would have fallen. Behind his passing, Joe Garcia's perfect shooting, and Jon Underwood's domination of the middle we were able to finish the week 7-0 with a 57-34 victory.

After this busy week, our schedule does not get any easier. This coming week we begin region play with tough games versus Copper Canyon, Bradshaw Mountain, and Millennium. All three of these teams will be very competitive and look to give us the first blemish on a good start. Some of the things that we learned this past week are that we are able to find ways to win, our defense will win us games, and that we will get every team's best shot, every night. To start 7-0, we have had many solid contributions from the many aforementioned players. The best part of this start is that we still have a lot of room for improvement. I know this sounds picky for a coach that is guiding an undefeated team, but it would be a lie to say that we are clicking on all cylinders. By Tuesday, we will be healthy and ready to go. Go Owls!

Coach O'Meara and Murphy

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Horizon Blog---First Two Weeks!!!

Game 1: Well, we started our season on the Tuesday night of Thanksgiving week down in Yuma against Cibola High School. This is an odd first game for a new coach as it is not your normal road game procedures. There are many things that were different about this game versus a regular road game. So here's a short list: 3 hour drive, getting lunches, parent travel, Thanksgiving week and some kids went on to California for Thanksgiving from Yuma, 1st game with new coach, 1st game of season, Yuma refs (whether that's a legitimate fear or not, it's in people's minds and thus a factor), leaving school early, all the other things that go with a chartered bus drive to a far location, no freshman game. And that's why I felt we could be walking into a trap. This year we have an extra game scheduled and therefore had to declare a game to "not count" for power rankings. At first, I thought this would be a good game to choose because of the fear of a trap for many of the reasons listed above. Then, as I thought more I decided to let it count as Cibola will win many games this year and is probably their region favorite. This would get us many points under the new power pts system. And….we had beaten them by 20+ at the end of the summer. Well, my fears started to materialize as we came out slow and less inspired than the Raiders. With 6 mins left in the 2nd quarter we were behind 36-18 and our guys had begun to yell at each other and get frustrated with each other. Cibola was finishing on breaks and hitting shots at a high percentage. It was a case of poor defense AND a team that was executing well. We called a timeout, explained that we would have to bond on the court and work together to come back, and that with the up tempo game that was being played, we could get back into it with work. Then we set a goal. Cut their lead to 6 by halftime. We started playing with more intensity on defense, and hitting the boards for easy put-backs. We missed a lay-up at the end of the half, but otherwise had done our job. We trailed 44-36 at the half. We reinforced our gameplan at halftime and came out ready to battle in the 2nd half. We started the 3rd quarter on a 13-2 run and the game was kept pretty close from that point on. In the end, we won a close one 76-74. We had several stops in a row from the 4min mark to the 1min mark, but missed on 5 straight offensive possessions (most of which were layups) that could have extended the lead to a safe cushion. For us, Nick Streff had an absolutely huge game with 26 points and 16 rebounds. We knew Nick would be our X-factor this year, but he had an unbelievably good first 4 games. Eric McGaffin poured in 23 and 7 assists and Matt Lincoln had 18. These are our Big-3 seniors and they stepped up for us in a big way. For Cibola, returning region MVP Zach Downing had a decent game with 21 points despite being layed up with mono for the 2 weeks prior to the game. He is a really solid player who can play out at the wing and also get to the rim. Cibola also got really good games from the Aldama brothers who scored 23 and 20 respectively. I don't have their first names but #20 hit 6 threes and played with passion all game long while his brother #14 was adept at penetrating and getting good looks. In the end I'm glad we decided to count this game, we'll take the 50 points and all the pts Cibola will get for us the rest of the year.

Game 2: We had our 2nd game one week later at Ironwood. In between games I had a busy week scouting all night on Wed at the Arrowhead Classic, then had a great Thanksgiving with my family and my wife's family, then went to the PV tourney on Friday all day to scout many teams (especially Mtn Ridge, Pinnacle, and D. Valley), then on Saturday I was at the Mesa Tourney all day. Whew, what a great week OFF. (yeah right!!!).

So, the next Tuesday we traveled to Ironwood. I had scouted them against Copper Canyon and came away very impressed with Justin Maynard (6'6) and Justin Hort (6'3). Kyle Sherwood (6'7) didn't play in this game, but a call to fellow coach John Fellens (Deer Valley) confirmed that Sherwood played in their scrimmage and was in their normal rotation for minutes. Anyway, our goal was to stop Maynard from getting in a rhythm early and try to make others beat us. We were pretty successful on that end as we held Maynard and Hort to just 3 first half pts each. On our side of the ball, Nick Streff again played hard inside and Matt Lincoln did a nice job of getting to the rim. Eric's shot was off, but he still managed 6 first-half pts. So, again it was looking like we only had 3 guys that could score as those three guys had 30 of our 32 first half pts. ½ time score 32-25. In the 3rd quarter the game was staying around 5 points when I put in our 6'8 sophomore center Kyle Tresnak. It turned out to be the most important thing we did all game as he hit for 11 points in the half and 6 rebounds while also getting their bigs into foul trouble. Kyle has grown 6 inches in 6 months and has gained a ton of confidence in the last 2 months, so it was nice to see him turn it on like that in a game. He'll have nice games like this and some games where he looks young and inexperienced. That's what happens when you're an underclassman. Another youngster stepped up in the 2nd half of this game as well. Our freshman guard, Stephen Topercer scored 10 points and played some very good defense. 'Top can play the point or the wing guard position and has a great court sense. He showed it tonight. In that half, we pushed the lead over 20 twice, with Ironwood bringing it back down both times. In fact, the last run they made was something like 14-4 in the last 2 mins of the game. I discussed this with our bench. With a 20+ point lead and 2 mins to go, there is absolutely NO WAY we should be allowing a team to score 14 points. We need to be more patient on offense and stay disciplined on defense. There are no "free minutes" just because we're up 20 and you are a guy coming off the bench. Everyone must execute, play hard, and produce a quality effort. That didn't happen at the end and we talked about it. But….we're now 2-0 and both were on the road. For Ironwood, their shooting guard Jason Brandsma finished with 16 and Josh Eaves had 10. They will also win quite a few games this year which will help us in the power points race.

Game 3: Our home opener!!! Wow, good crowd, good games at the lower levels, good opponent. What more could you ask for? We played Mountain Ridge in the opener. I know this team very well and have seen most of them grow (in size and ability) over the past 4 years as they were one of our major rivals when I was at Trevor Browne. Mike Andrews and Brandon Gabbard are two of the hardest working big men in the state. They are big bodies that can pound you and can shoot the mid-range jumper. Jayson Shreve is a tremendous athlete that can elevate with anyone and they have their own super-frosh in Jared Zoller. Our game plan was simple. Run. Feed off the crowd for defensive intensity and keep the tempo fast-paced. We didn't want a lot of half court basketball as that is their strength. We wanted to negate their height advantage by making it a running game. It totally worked…..for 1 quarter. We came out looking incredible. Eric McGaffin was hitting shots, Stephen Telekesy and Nick Streff were running the break, and we were causing turnovers with our defense. We finished the first quarter ahead 21-14. Brandon Gabbard had 10 in that quarter on inside moves for Ridge. Then it stopped. The rest of the game would be played at a slower pace. The second quarter score was 10-5 them. We hit one shot. 26-24 us at the half. We had only 11 rebounds at halftime and I would guess Mtn Ridge probably had about 22. In the second half we rebounded much better, but still gave them too many shots on quite a few possessions. The game went right down to the end, with both teams doing a terrible job at the free-throw line. It culminated with Eric missing the front end of a 1-and-1 with 11 seconds left. Ridge got the ball and pushed it down the floor. They got off 2 good looks and 1 contested look in the last 11 seconds before we finally grabbed the rebound to secure the victory. For us, Nick Streff finished with 16 points and 17 rebounds, while Eric McGaffin hit for 15. Other guys stepped up big as well. Stephen Telekesy, Tyler Larson (great 4th quarter), Danny Thielen, and Stephen Topercer were all pivotal in this victory. Matt Lincoln had a tough night and we'll have to make sure to get him going tomorrow at North Canyon. For Ridge, Jayson had a tough night, while Gabbard finished with 18 and 11 rebounds and Mike Andrews went for 11 and 10 boards. I think this puts Ridge at 6-2. They are a strong team and will be a major contender in the new Desert Valley region that they are now a part of. Sure was a tough home opener for a new coach, but we persevered, stayed scrappy all night, and pulled it out.

Game 4: Rain Day. Traveled to North Canyon for the final game of the week. Many of our guys work out with their JV coach, Mike O'Guinn and his Rebels program so it was a nice chance for them to show him what they could do. One of our JV guys, Ryan Pane (who works out with Mike a lot) had his career best game scoring 21 points in the JV game. Matt Lincoln is also a Rebel player during the AAU season and he came out to play tonight. We talked about getting him involved early and that's what we did. He had 10 points in the first quarter as he and Eric and Nick scored all 19 of our points. It was nice to see the first team work effectively in transition tonight. Then it was the bench's turn in the 2nd quarter. Stephen Topercer, Warren Ginsberg, and Kyle Tresnak each scored 7 points in the quarter and as a team we hit for 27. At the half it was 46-28. Unfortunately the killer instinct / intensity died down at the half and we played an even 2nd half. Final score 66-49. Nick Streff finished with 16 pts and 13 rebs, Matt Lincoln had 12 and 4 assists and 'Top, McGaffin, Tresnak, and Ginsberg each scored 7 or more. I told the team that Champion teams had many defining characteristics, but almost all champions have these two: 1) they are resilient and can when even when things aren't going as planned. 2) They have the ability to put teams away and not let them back into games. We have already showed #1 above twice this season, we misfired on #2 tonight.

All in all, a very nice two weeks. We're sitting at 4-0 and on top of the Power Rankings, but we've got two very tough games next week. First, on Tuesday, we have Hamilton coming into Horizon for a big game. Then, on Friday, we travel to Chandler to face off with Mike Ellsworth (who gave me my first coaching position and is still a close friend of mine) and his Chandler Wolves. These are two tough teams and we'll have to play hard and smart to come away with a couple of wins.

Thank you's for the week:

*To the Booster Club and Quizno's for the boxed lunches that were provided for the team

on the trip to Cibola.

*To my two booster club public relations officers (Heidi Anaya and Kendra Swensen) for their coordination of the halftime introduction of our incoming 8th grade all-star teams at halftime of the home opener.

*To Rock Schaffer and Frank Tresnak (and all the helpers) for organizing and running the shoot-a-thon fund-raiser that raised over $9000 for the basketball program.

*To Richie Iafrate for all his help in getting the gym and the equipment ready for us this season.

*To my assistant coaches for their hard work over the first two weeks: Phil Cullen, Paul Sanger, Anthony Cervantes

*To Mary Streff, Bob and Amy Pane, for their work putting together an incredible game program that any college would be proud of.

*To the "Dog Pound" for their loyalty to the school and crazy support during home games. Let's keep it loud all season long.

*and finally to the athletics office and bookstore personnel for keeping me on the right track.

Stay healthy and have fun!!

Coach Long

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Coolidge Bears Blog #1

It is amazing how time flies. We have already had five weeks of practice and have played a full week of games. Currently we are sitting at 2-1 and are probably no better or no worse than that. There is always a transition time when you coach boys' basketball in Coolidge as you can bank on Coach Hernandez and his staff heading deep into the 3A football tournament. As I have said time and time again, we would not want it any other. While on that note, I can truly say Coach Hernandez probably put together his best coaching to date and should be applauded for doing so.

Coolidge 74 Hayden 52

Hayden gave us a run for our money last season. We barely beat them by single digits but after playing them on this night it was apparent that although we both lost key players to our teams, their losses were a little more drastic. This game began at frenetic pace with both teams playing lousy defense and looking like it was their first game of the season. However, a huge bright spot was the play of Keith Shaw who broke out with fifteen our first eighteen points for the quarter. This kid has been in the gym since our last game last seen and it definitely showed on this night as he ended a career night with thirty points in twenty two minutes of play (talk about efficient). Ultimately, the depth we have lead us to a run away victory with Vincent Ellis sparking the bench play by scoring twelve points, grabbing eight rebounds, stealing four passes in a little over fifteen minutes of play (he remains the player who does the most things well for us).

Chandler Valley Christian 69 Coolidge 44

Well, how much fun can you have on a Tuesday? This game was a headache and a half. We could not hit the broad side of a barn nor could we rebound one either. I told the guys going in that Valley Christian is the type of program we need to try to emulate. We have yet to rebound and become a program again ever since Coach Glasgow left over three years ago. I am greatly impressed with their coaching, players, and administration. They truly are a class act. Is there a more put together point guard in the state? I highly doubt it. There was two bright sides to our game; Richard "Bo" Wright really asserted himself on the offensive and defensive end and Myster Duran really proved that he is a team guy and would do all the little things that Nick Hills did for us last year. He truly is the best teammate that we could ever ask for.

Coolidge 51 Holbrook 49

Coming in Holbrook was 3-0 and looking to continue their winning ways. We however had other thoughts. The game would begin with us hitting on all cylinders and leading 11-4. Brad Jackson and Vincent Ellis really imposed their will upon Holbrook as they have great shooters but no real inside presence that could handle either of our "tough" guys. Heading into halftime were feeling confident with a nine point lead but did not like the fact that we could not put them away (definitely a testament to their coaching and will). The third quarter was a real low for us we as we only put up four points but still lead going into the fourth by one. With all the momentum in their favor, they took a four point lead midway through the fourth until we would rally. Dameer Jordan showed flashes of brilliance getting two baskets and a free throw (six points on and one's) giving us a slim two point lead. With 1.9 seconds left and Keith Shaw hitting the front end of double bonus, I asked him to miss the second to disallow them to set up anything for a last second three. However, they got the rebound passed it out to the three point line and heaved a ¾ shot that almost went in. So much for my brilliance! After the game I apologized and said next time I would leave it up to whoever is shooting the last free throw to determine whether they would like to miss or make the shot.

Upcoming Week

During the upcoming week, we have at least six games in seven days and hopefully seven in seven days. Tuesday we head to Estrella Foothills and play who I feel is playing the best basketball 1A-3A at this stage in the season. We need to do some real polishing or we could have a long night. Later in the week, we play in our Christmas Tournament against; Eloy, Tempe, Rio Rico, and South Pointe. We took this tournament last year and would love to vie for the championship again. We look forward to continuing to getting better throughout the season.

Ben Armstrong-CHS Varsity Boys Basketball Coach