Playing in the Round of 16 at the Findlay Toyota Center in Prescott Valley on Friday, Feb. 21, Sedona Red Rock High School’s girls basketball team played well in its game against San Carlos. Unfortunately for the No. 11 seeded Scorpions, the No. 6 seed Braves played just a little better.
Sedona started strong, jumping out to a 17-11 lead after the first quarter. The Scorpions led throughout but eventually the San Carlos shots started to drop. The Braves went ahead in the final minute of the game and held on from there, defeating Sedona 66-63.
“They hit the threes,” SRRHS coach Kirk Westervelt said. “They must have hit five threes in the fourth quarter. They had to hit them and they did. And they weren’t wide open. I thought we played pretty good defense. They hit the shots. They took it. We didn’t just give it.”
The critical sequence in the game came in the third quarter.
The Scorpions led at halftime, but the Braves had generally gotten the better the play in the final minutes of the second quarter. Sedona shook that off, though, dominating the early portion of the third quarter and building an 18-point lead. From there, San Carlos began to chip away and headed into the fourth quarter trailing by a significant but manageable 50-41 deficit. The fourth quarter belonged to the Braves, who outscored the Scorpions 25- 13 to come away with the win.
“We fought hard, had a large lead for almost the entire game,” Sedona senior Mary Westervelt said. “Credit to them. They hit some major shots. We weren’t able to close some shots that we needed to. But overall I definitely think we played very hard. They came back from our 18- point lead. Kudos to them for achieving that. For us, that really sucks.”
Westervelt finished the game with 14 points. That was second on the team to sophomore guard Nyah Valdez, who hit a quartet of threes and finished the game with 20. The freshman backcourt of Helen Westervelt and Annabelle Cook had 13 and 11 points, respectively, while sophomore forward Stephanie Medel scored five.
An issue that reared its head for the Scorpions throughout the season — especially in the tougher games — was its lack of depth. Nobody outside of the starting five recorded any points against the Braves. When some of the starters got into foul trouble, the inexperience of the bench really showed against a good San Carlos team.
After the game, coach Westervelt stressed that for the Sedona program to reach the next level, playing year round will be a necessity.
“For a program to compete, to get into the state Final Four, we have to play year round and summer ball. Everyone in Phoenix does. We didn’t do it last summer but we’ve got to do it this summer. We’ll be in a league for sure.”
The good news for the Scorpions is that the team figures to have a lot of familiar faces not only next year but for the next two to three seasons. Mary Westervelt will graduate. But she was the only senior on this year’s varsity team and in the entire program.
Furthermore, the remainder of the varsity roster is comprised entirely of freshmen and sophomores.
“I want to let everyone know to watch out for this team over the next few seasons,” Mary said. “They’re going to do lots of damage.”
“I definitely think we proved a lot of people wrong,” she added. “They thought, ‘two freshmen, two sophomores, one senior. They’re going to get rolled by every team.’ Unfortunately in some of those games, we weren’t able to close. But I think we gave every team we played a run for their money. That’s an accomplishment in itself.”
With the loss, Sedona finished its season at 13-8. The Scorpions went 10-5 against fellow 2A opponents and 8-4 in the 2A Central Region, good enough for third place.
“It was definitely fun and almost new because every girl is so young,” said Mary, who was somewhat new herself having missed nearly all of last season following knee surgery. “And they are the greatest group of girls that I’ve played with. We really came together, almost as a family. We were having fun while putting the hard work in. That’s what it’s really all about. It’s just too bad that we had to end on this note.”
