Kevin Foster is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Saguaro High School for AZPreps365.com.

On Wednesday night, Salpointe Catholic High School came into a hostile Saguaro High School gymnasium and handled the home Sabercats to advance in the 4A state tournament.

In a game that saw two students get kicked out and multiple game stoppages to reprimand the crowd, Salpointe was able to get the win, 63-54.

“We’ve been in tough road positions a few times this season, in our winter tournament in Arcadia they brought like half their city, so during timeouts we told the team, ‘We’ve been here before,’” said Salpoint head coach Justin Curran.

Salpointe held the lead from wire to wire in this one but really separated from Saguaro in the second quarter when the team implemented a zone press.

“It’s our bread and butter, we’ve been running it throughout the season, it gets us through a lot of games,” said Salpointe’s junior guard, Jaya Nelson, who was Salpointe’s leading scorer on the night with 17.

They also were able to get their offense cooking in the second quarter. Salpointe outscored Saguaro by seven in the quarter to put them up nine points.

“Our chemistry really came through today, we’ve been waiting to play in a game like this in an environment like this for a long time, to show who we really are,” Nelson said.

There were not many bright points for Saguaro in this game, but if there was one it was senior guard Amayah Kirkman, who finished the game with 24 points. The emotion in Kirkman was clear as she was playing hard the whole game and came off the court in tears, when subbed out with under a minute left to a huge ovation by both teams' fans.

Saguaro’s season might be over, but Salpointe is continuing on in the tournament against Shadow Mountain on Saturday.