Dave Moncibaez to the rescue.
Following last week’s mass resignation by the entire Mingus Union High School girls basketball staff, the former MUHS head coach has brought four Marauders on board to play summer basketball with his Sedona Red Rock High School underclassmen beginning Thursday, June 2, at 4 p.m.
“Now they don’t have anybody,” he said. “It helps us out with some additional bodies, but at the same time, they want to stay in shape.
“If the girls want to stay active, they should be able to stay active. It helps them, too.”
Juniors Emily Bauers and Xanessa Zabala and sophomores Darien Loring and Summer Scott are joining forces with new and returning Scorpions to play for the Sedona Blazin’ Nets in a 10-team round-robin tournament against high school players from across north-central Arizona.
“They all want to come,” Moncibaez said. “We kept it local last time, but it branched out.”
The idea evolved from rotating summer league sites Moncibaez proposed to Camp Verde High School head girls coach and athletic director Mark Showers.
“We used to go to Coconino [High School], but that fell through,” he said. “So I called Mark, and I said, ‘I’ve got two facilities that are great. I can get the referees.’
“He went with it.”
Camp Verde and Sedona will open against each other in their first of two games June 2.
“Four games a week; two games every day,” Moncibaez said. “That’s what we did at Coco[nino]; I liked that format.”
Two of Big Park Community School’s final graduates, Morgan Fritz and Grace Hafner, are the incoming freshmen on the team.
“We’re making this the place to play basketball,” said their former Big Park coach, assistant coach Kirk Westervelt, who has two daughters, Liza and Mary, on the team. “Build it and they will come. The only way is to get out there and help them.”
Odalis Robles is the team’s lone West Sedona School representative.
“Coach Westervelt invited me,” she said. “My goal is to get in tune with high school play.”
When not playing, the girls practice Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with Moncibaez, Kirk Westervelt and assistant coaches Jeff Fritz and Stephanie Tomlinson running them and helping to develop skills.
“Those Navajos will eat you up and spit you out if you don’t come to the ball,” warned Westervelt in one fast-break passing drill. Ganado High School is scheduled to play in Doc Adams Gym beginning Tuesday, June 7.
“We’re still on the basics,” Moncibaez said. “We haven’t even gotten to teach offensive or defensive plays yet.”
Which was fine with five-foot guard Anna Stecklein, the only freshman in the Scorpions program in Moncibaez’s first year.
She played on the junior varsity team under Tomlinson.
“I played all the games and started most of them [except] the last three games,” she said. “I still like JV and I think it’s a good thing, especially for fundamental development.”
For more photos and the complete Sedona girls basketball summer league opening night schedule, please see the Wednesday, June 1, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.
