Lady Pirates have unfinished business to settle

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz.

The Valley Lady Pirates have experienced some pretty highs and some pretty lows this season.

On the good side, the Pirates went undefeated during sectional play and during the Christmas break they won the Payson tournament that featured teams from both Division II and III schools.

On the not-so-good side, Valley suffered its only divisional lost to St. Johns last month that cost them the No. 1 seed for this year’s Division IV state playoffs.

“In all my coaching I don’t blame the refs for losing a game but that game the referees took over,” Valley coach Julia Six said. “None of the calls went our way.”

Nonetheless, it served a wakeup call for her team.

“I told my girls that I was sorry that we lost that way but they realized that every team wants to beat us,” Six said. “From what I heard that was the best St. Johns had played all season.”

Looking back, Six said St. Johns did them a favor.

“We’re in the bottom half of the bracket and we won’t see Gilbert Christian until the finals,” she said of the defending state champs. “We’re on the same bracket with the reservation teams.”

On Feb. 21, the Pirates eliminated one of those reservation schools as they used their speed to overwhelm Baboquivari, 68-22, at the Prescott Valley Events Center.

With a dominant performance senior guard Tamara Nez scored 25 points on 10 field goals.

But in what proved to be a recurring theme throughout was how the Pirates played defense and shared the ball as sophomore Cherelle Speen and Star Hicks added ten and eight, respectively.

“We executed on so many levels,” Speen said. “We just played a perfect game.”

“We’ve been preaching them about team work,” Six added. “A couple of them have been here before. They have that state experience so they know what to do. They put everything together and they stayed focus.”

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