Liam Archer is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism Master's student assigned to cover Phoenix Country Day School for AZPreps365.com

PARADISE VALLEY – Phoenix Country Day boys basketball team celebrated senior night with an unforgettable drubbing of BASIS Phoenix, 84-31, behind captain Tanti Felli’s historic 50-point performance. Felli, a senior, became the ninth player in Eagle program history to surpass 1,000 points.

Entering the game, Felli was sitting at 999 career points. He didn’t have to wait long to celebrate, scoring the first points of the game for the Eagles on their second possession. 

The first attempt was on an alley-oop pass that fell short of the rim. During the following possession, Felli converted the same alley-oop play from fellow senior Matthew Santos.

“The first play was the plan, but it got messed up,” Felli laughed, “so we gave it another shot, and even though I didn’t dunk it, I’m just glad I made it.”

Phoenix Country Day (13-3) knew they wanted to give Felli a chance to break the record from tip off, and they knew that BASIS Phoenix (5-8) was a mismatch. “We sort of had that vision,” co-captain Kiahn Tehranchi said, “that first play was always meant for him.”

With the 1,000 point milestone under his belt in the opening seconds, Felli became the eighth player in head coach Shane Lewis’ 13-year tenure at Phoenix Country Day to reach the mark. Despite his talent and imposing basketball figure, Felli didn’t think he’d reach the milestone.

“It’s something that I didn’t think I was going to get, being a three-year player,” Felli said.

At 6’7”, Felli is still relatively new to the game of basketball, having only played for five years. He and Tehranchi started playing together in eighth grade, and according to Tehranchi, the strides Felli has made are astounding.

“He was not very good,” Tehranchi joked, “but watching his growth, especially, has been something special.”

After the game, Lewis recalled with other seniors how Felli used to struggle even just dribbling the basketball as a freshman.

“He’s just come such a long way,” Lewis said. “He’s an amazing kid. He’s a hard worker and he’s so coachable. It’s just been a joy to coach him.”

With his 1,000th point scored, Felli wasn’t done etching his name in the Phoenix Country Day history books.

Felli registered 50 points on the night, good for the highest single game point total in the Eagles’ program history. It took him only two and a half quarters to do so.

After one quarter of play, the Eagles had jumped out to a lopsided 28-9 advantage, with 19 of the points coming from Felli. By halftime, Phoenix Country Day held a 40-point advantage and Felli, alone, had 34 points.

Out of the break, Felli had a solo run of back-to-back steals leading to transition three-point makes. He would have the first eight points of the second half for the Eagles, getting him to an even 50 by the 4:17 mark in the third quarter.

“I had 60 on my mind,” Felli said.

With a sizable halftime lead, Lewis was initially going to rest Felli in the second half, but after some convincing from his captain, he obliged.

“I didn’t know how many he had at the half, until he started begging me to stay in,” Lewis said. “I told him, Alright, shoot some threes, don’t get hurt, play the top of the zone,' and then we just let him go.” 

Felli finished his historic 50-point night shooting 22-34 from the field with four three-pointers, seven rebounds and four blocks.

“It’s special,” Felli said. “It’s really, really special. To spend this night with my boys on our last home run, putting it all out on the floor, it just felt really good.”

Phoenix Country Day (13-3) will travel to Scottsdale Christian (14-2) for its regular season finale on Friday.