During the 2019-20 winter sports season, the Sedona Red Rock High school girls basketball team showed a great deal of promise. The continued COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many changes in the months that have passed since SRRHS lost in the Round of 16 during the state playoffs in February. But even amidst the pandemic, the Scorpion girls remain committed to getting better.
The team has been in the gym practicing ever since SRRHS began its summer practices in June. The second spike of COVID has kept the Scorpions in Phase 1 of summer practices, which, among other things, has limited the number of girls that can practice at one time to no more than 10. Despite the restrictions, members of the team have been upbeat about what’s taken place.
“It’s going pretty well — we’re missing a couple of girls but a lot of people still come,” sophomore Helen Westervelt said. “It’s harder. We can’t really scrimmage because it’s close contact. So we haven’t been doing too much of that. So it’s been a bit different but kind of the same. We try not to think of the COVID stuff going around. Just treat it as a normal basketball practice — except at six feet apart.”
A specific area where the Scorpions have especially benefited is in conditioning. Any Sedona players who normally would have played a spring sport had their season canceled a few short weeks in. Additionally, quarantining made it challenging for the athletes to do anything on their own.
But two months into the practice season, the Scorpions already feel a difference.
“We’re definitely getting a lot better and back in shape,” junior Stephanie Medel said. “I know most of us were super tired on the first day of practice. [Coach Kirk] Westervelt definitely got us back in shape. He’s a really good coach for that.”
Her teammate, sophomore Leah Pedersen, was out of practice until Aug. 5 while nursing an arm injury. But on her first day back, she saw how positive the summer practices had been for her teammates.
“The team is looking really strong — summer ball is definitely helping,” Pedersen said. “I’m glad that we’re still in the gym and putting the work in as a team. It feels really good. I’m definitely out of shape a little bit but it feels good to be running around on the court and out there with my teammates.”
Despite showing a good deal of potential last season, the Scorpions were also left with plenty of room to improve. They struggled closing games against good opponents. That was most apparent in the Scorpions playoff loss to San Carlos and the first regular season game against Camp Verde. Both times, the Scorpions held a significant lead in the third quarter. Both times they lost.
That was the bad news for the Scorpions, as they were left with a sense of unfinished business. The good news for the Scorpions is that only one player from that team graduated. The girls that remain are determined to use the summer practices to build off of that experience and become a better team.
“We’ve really worked hard and we’re still a young team coming back,” sophomore Annabelle Cook said. “We’re all sophomores and juniors now. That’s our starting lineup and we’re probably going to start a freshman. We’re going to push and try hard. We got left hungry last season with that loss in the state tournament. We want to get back there. We want to play more games.”
Pedersen shared her teammate’s sentiment.
“We knew that we could beat most of the teams and we came very close to some very good teams,” Pedersen said. “We knew that we had to work harder and stronger to get up to their level and beat them. Because we have that advantage of being young and we’ve got to keep working until we get there.”
