Page High hosting one big holiday tournament

Posted by Quentin Jodie | Nov 30, 2023 | Basketball |

WINDOW ROCK – For any high school basketball buffs, this year’s Antelope Canyon Holiday Classic is the place to be.

The annual event will have its boys and girls tournaments coincide with one another as the 45th annual event starts today with a slew of games at the Page High hosted tournament.

The boys’ tournament will feature seven teams while the girls will have eight teams.

In the boys’ bracket, tournament host Page will have a bye in the opening round. In the top half of the bracket, 2A Piñon plays 4A school Goodyear Estrella Foothills at 5 p.m.

In the bottom half, Chinle faces Las Vegas Rancho High (Nevada) at 6:30 p.m. while Monument Valley takes on Montezuma Cortez (Colorado) at 3:30 p.m.

In the girls’ tournament, St. George Dixie takes on Salt Lake City East High at 3:30 p.m. with the winner playing the survivor of the 5 p.m. game between Page and Goodyear Estrella Foothills.

The bottom draw includes the 6:30 p.m. contest between defending tournament champion Kirtland Central and Kingman Lee Williams followed by Monument Valley and Las Vegas Sierra Vista (Nevada) at 8 p.m.

“It’s going to be competitive, and we’re excited to have the boys and girls combined their tournaments this year,” Page girls coach Celeste “Boka” Claw said. “We’ve invited teams that we don’t normally see, and we tried to bring in teams from different areas.”

First-year tournament entrant Estrella Foothills enters the tournament with a 2-0 record. Last season, the Wolves went 26-8 overall under head coach Noel Hachtel’s first season.

“I’ve talked to their coach multiple times, and he’s been trying to get into the holiday classic for the last two years,” Claw said. “They finally were able to get a spot.”

Claw is expecting the Wolves to be a scrappy team.

“They’re very competitive,” the Page coach said. “They played in Washington during the summertime, and they just love to compete. It’s going to be a fun game.”

The Page squad is going to lean on its seven seniors. They included Lashundean Henry, Alyssa Harris, Taytum Curley, Jade Reid, Kaydence Tsinigine, Kylie Benale and Sofia Cambridge.

“We’re senior heavy this year, but we do have a lot of sophomores that are coming up so that’s exciting,” Claw said.

Her top underclassmen include junior LeLaura Yazzie as well as sophomores Tayla Franklin and Aubrey Martinez.

“This is one of my most athletic teams,” Claw said. “We’re still developing, we’re still growing and we’re trying to mesh together, figuring out what works best for us as a team.”

With the talent that she has, Claw is expecting her team to advance further in the 3A state playoffs than they did last season. The Sand Devils got as far as the second round, losing to No. 3 seed Yuma Catholic by a 46-40 count.

“Our intentions every year is to make sure we improve on what we did the previous season,” Claw said. “We’re more than capable of going further than where we ended last year. I think we have the pieces to do that.

“Again, there’s always some fine-tuning to do,” Claw added. “We still have some things to clean up.”