Girls 1A playoffs to tipoff tonight

WINDOW ROCK

The Arizona 1A girls state playoffs get underway tonight with a pair of local teams making the field.

The Rock Point Lady Cougars earned the No. 2 seed for this year’s tournament and the St. Michaels Lady Cardinals got the nod as the sixth seed.

According to the AIA, Rock Point finished with an unbeaten record, which does not include tournament games. With 13 victories under their belt, they feel prepared for the upcoming state playoffs.

Rock Point is hosting No. 15 Duncan at 7 p.m. tonight.

Lady Cougar coach Andrew Reed said his girls are excited and hungry for the state title. After missing their chance to play in last year’s championship, they’re ready to earn another gold trophy again.

“Its unbelievable,” Reed said. “I think we could have done back-to-back state title, but after taking a year off my girls really stepped up. They’re ready to get back on the court and not take things for granted.

“That made a difference for us now and being ranked No. 2 in Arizona is one of the most awarding things because my girls really stepped it up, they know what it takes to get down there and they have been pushing themselves and it shows.”

The team had adjusted to the COVID-19 precautions, going as far as testing which masks works best for them while playing, and isolating themselves to mitigate the risk of them getting sick and missing the games.

Reed commends his juniors for stepping up as they trained, and the seniors for leading the team, especially the ones who had been to state before.

Reed said that they are taking it one game at a time and that they’re only focusing on the teams in front of them. They’re expecting a good game from St. Michaels and Fort Thomas, but they are on guard for any potential underdog that could steal the win from them.

“I just want to thank the Navajo Nation for letting us play, giving all the athletes the chance to show the talent and do what they love doing,” Reed said. “We’re blessed, our schools I working with us, our administration is working with us, athletics working extra hard to make sure we have a team…and I’m just blessed to have a great squad who are focused and ready to go down to the tournament and go after the gold ball. That’s our goal, we just need to stay focus and stay strong.”

Equally, St. Michael is just as eager for state.

Lady Cardinal’s coach, Carl Adams, led his team to state a year ago, the only rez team to compete during the 2020 season. They made it to the final four before being eliminated by eventual champion, Fort Thomas.

St. Michaels hosts St. David at 7 p.m. at the Window Rock Events Center.

This year Adams is working with a mostly new team, but he is confident in their skills and abilities.

“I always told the girl there is always pressure with the name you wear and the school you represent,” he said. “Everyone expect you have a good season, a winning season and overall competitive program and our girls have really stepped up to that expectation and there are games where we did showed our youth, but we’re usually ranked high every year and that’s just based off what we do and where we set our program and what we done to get where were at right now.

“It’s been a lot of growing pains but overall were satisfied and happy with the progress the girls have done so far.”

Looking at the bracket, Adams feels like the team can handle their opponents, including Fort Thomas. The previous year they were missing players when they were at the playoffs and even now they haven’t fielded the whole team yet due to COVID, but he feels like the team has grown and are prepared to face their opponents.

His team this year is composed of skilled seniors and other classmen. This includes returning player, senior Gabriella Simpson, who’s been his dominating player since her freshmen year.

According to Adams, Simpson is very aggressive, and she worked hard on rebounding the ball while developing her 3-point shot.

His other senior, Kalynn Smith, is a freshmen player who’s energy works well on defense and is a guard the team can depend on. Autumn Shirley is a junior who is good at passing, shooting and can be aggressive on offense. Sophomores Cameron Hanley and Brandi Dalgai are good shooters who took Adams by surprised. Even if the team loses these play-offs, he feels like next year they’ll do better as they have a good team that can only get better with time.

“We’ve been trying to mold our team to where they need to be and so hopefully this state tournament were going to do good,” Adams said, while adding that that they’re looking to play St. Michaels Indian basketball.

“It feels great and amazing,” he said. “Ranking is just a number, It tells you how well you did during a season. It doesn’t define your program so were pumped, our girls are pumped, our energy is good and were good where were at and were ready to perform.”

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