Final Week of the Regular Season:

Monday: Normal practice today as we prepare for a very big week. We play Mountain Ridge and Sandra Day O'Connor. We could end up anywhere from 3rd to 5th in the region. If we lose Tuesday, we will be 5th. This would not be good as it would mean we would have a road game in the first round of the regional tournament. If we win Tuesday, we are guaranteed a home game on Monday to start off regionals. We could finish 3rd in the region by beating both Ridge and SDO. We would end up tied with SDO at 9-5 in the region but would have beaten them twice…..so 3rd is a possibility.

Tuesday: We played a very good game tonight. All day I was thinking about the game, the matchups, the tempo, the style, setting the tone early, etc… I read on some of the websites about all the turmoil going on at Ridge and figured they would either come out fired up with an "us against everybody" attitude or come out and play selfish and flat. Well they played pretty well. I was very proud of our guys. We played hard for all 4 quarters and set the tone of the game by mixing up zones and traps all night. We grabbed 46 rebounds against a team that goes 6'10, 6'8, 6'6, 6'5, and that's no easy feat. We ran the break well when it was available and didn't force the ball too much. Overall, it was a well-executed game plan and I've got to give our guys credit for that. I told them at halftime that Ridge had been cold from 3-point land, but that they could just as easily come out stroking in the 2nd half. Well, that's exactly what they did. Colin Borchert and Josh Morrow each hit 3's and then Vidal Isegohimen hit one. Their attack in the 2nd half was mostly from the perimeter and it was pretty effective as we never could extend our 10 point halftime lead past about 14 points. They'd make a run down to 5 or 6 and then we'd answer back up to 10 or 12. For the game we got 4 guys into double figures scoring again. Louis led the way with 17 including a big dunk over someone to end the half and a crucial 3 in the 4th quarter. Katrell had 13, Marcel had 12, and Donald had 10. Additionally each of those 4 had 7 rebounds or more led by Marcel with 13. In the locker room after the game we talked about SDO on Friday and Senior Night. The seniors need to step up to the challenge. It is a tradition at Trevor Browne to start the seniors on their last home game. Therefore, Alondray, Louis, Katrell, and Marcel will sit to honor the seniors. I told the seniors we'd go with them as long as they produced, it could be 30 seconds it could be 6 minutes. 3 of our seniors, Darrylon Lane, Donald Martin, and Lincoln Ajao-Faroq have been playing extremely hard and putting it all out there. It's as if they see that the end is near and they're really stepping up BIG TIME. The other senior starters for Friday will probably be Tyrone Marshall and Jamal Anderson. Will Spiva is still hurt, but is hoping to get cleared in time to play. We've missed his all-around ability, but have covered for him nicely thanks to Lincoln and Donald's steady play.

On a side note, I had the ability to talk to Mason Maynard's parents both before and after the game. It is always a pleasure talking with them and they have raised Mason well. He is a classy kid who should excel at the next level. In fact, Mrs. Maynard even did a little "baby-sitting" with my 2 sons (Trevor 4 ½ and Ryan 1 ½ ) at halftime. I know it's been a long ride for them at Mountain Ridge with 3 different coaches (and offenses, and defenses, and philosophies, etc…) over the past 3 years, but Mason has matured and grown into a very good player and more importantly a very good person.

Wednesday: Normal Practice.

Thursday: Normal Practice, got Will Spiva cleared for tomorrow's game and the rest of the season.

Friday: Ugly game with lots of turnovers. We held a very high-scoring SDO team to 22 points in the first half, but only led by 9. That's because we made 16 turnovers against their press and forcing the ball in transition. In the second half, we played to their tempo, and they scored 48 2nd half points and beat us 70-67. We were led by Marcel Jones 18 pts and 14 rebs. It was a tough loss, but in the end all it really does is change the order of who we have to beat next week in regionals. We play Mountain Ridge on Monday night, then would play Deer Valley on Wednesday at their place.

Saturday: All-Region teams were selected today. Christian Polk was voted player of the year. He was a unanimous choice. For us, Louis Barraza made the 1st team All-Region, while Marcel Jones and Katrell Newton each made 2nd team All-Region. I think Marcel probably could have made 1st team, but only played in 10 of the 14 region games, so some teams didn't see him much.

Good luck to all in Regional play this week,

Coach Long

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Well after clinching the Northwest Region regular season title our focus shifted to trying to win out in order to maintain the #1 seed in 5A Division II.

Tuesday 2/7/06 home vs Boulder Creek:

It was Senior night, and as a tradition we start all seniors and play all seniors in the first quarter. It is then up to them to determine if we go back to are regular rotations. We got off to a great start hitting 6 three pointers in the first quarter and never looked back. The seniors got most of the playing time in the 68-44 victory over Boulder Creek.

Friday 2/10/06 @ Kingman:

We left for Kingman around 11:30am and got there about 3:15pm. Road trips like this are always scary because it's easy to lose your focus on such a long trip. Our seniors did make this trip back when they were Freshmen before Kingman switched out of our region. The Freshmen team did a great job winning by about 30, and the JV held on to a hard fought victory despite their leading scoring not making the trip due to injury. As for the varsity, we got off to a slow start. Kingman came out very pumped since it was their senior night. We were able to score on them but our press wasn't a factor early on and we were only up three after the first quarter. I put Jordan Hunter as our point man in our press to start the second quarter and things quickly changed in our favor. Jordan jumped started the press causing turnovers and Mike Brooks and Christian Polk started drilling 3's in transition. Kingman was still not going to quit, and cut our 17-point lead down to 7 in the third quarter. Again we settled down and pulled away to win 73 to 58. Christian Polk led the way with 34 points.

Week ahead:

On Wednesday night we will play the winner of the Mt Ridge

& Trevor Browne game. While Goldwater will play the winner of the Kingman & O'Connor game before us. Both games will be at Deer Valley (5:15pm & 7pm).

On Friday the two losers from Wednesday will play at DV at 5:15pm. The region three point contest will following this game (#24 Mike Brooks will be shooting for DV) and the All- Region awards will be presented. The two winners from Wednesday will then play with the winner gaining the automatic birth to State.

We know we are already in the 5AII playoffs, but we want to keep our slim lead over South Mt for the #1 seed so the two games we play this week will be very important!

John Fellens