Spencer Durose is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Valley Christian High School for AZPreps365. 

A back-and-forth duel on Friday night at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, AZ, saw the Valley Christian Trojans defeat the Yuma Catholic Shamrocks 71-62 in the 3A state championship semifinals.

The Shamrocks, led by center Fernando Vazquez, got out to an early 9-4 lead to start the first quarter, however, that advantage quickly diminished as the Trojans battled back behind Luke Shaw and Austin Wallace. The Shamrocks maintained their lead at the end of the first, 13-12. 

A “Shaw-dropping” second quarter saw the junior star put up 10 points by himself, giving the Trojans a 33-29 lead to end the half.

“God’s gifted me with these talents and I just try to come out here and give back to him with everything that he's blessed me with,” Shaw said. “I got my teammates that trust me with the ball and it’s something that makes this team so special is we get on each other and we’re not afraid to yell at each other when we make a mistake. They hold me accountable and I hold them accountable and that’s what makes this team so good.”

The start of the second half saw the two teams continue to battle late into the third. The Trojans put up 21 in the quarter behind two late Kyle Grier 3-pointers, giving them a 54-47 lead heading into the fourth. 

“My coaches and my teammates are always just feeding positive comments into me, just giving me the confidence to be able to hit those shots,” Grier said. 

Valley Christian led 59-58 after the Shamrocks battled their way back into the game behind some stellar 3-point shooting with 4:30 remaining in the quarter. However, it was all Trojan basketball after that. The team went on a 12-3 run to end the fourth, giving them the win and punching their ticket into the 3A state championship game.

Shaw led the team with 24. He’s confident that the team will be ready no matter who they play in tomorrow’s matchup.

“Just win,” Shaw said. “A lot of people on the team were here last year and we know what it takes to win and we want to feel what winning feels like again so we’re gonna come out and play as hard as we can and just do whatever it takes.” 

Head coach Greg Haagsma feels the same. He believes his team is as ready as they’ve ever been and is hopeful that they’ll bring home the state championship back to Valley Chrisitan once again.

“I don’t think it matters who we play, it’s going to be a great game tomorrow,” Haagsma said. “We played a couple of back-to-backs earlier this season to prepare for this and at this point in the season you just have to grind it out for one more day.” 

Haagsma was satisfied with his team's performance and believes today's game showed just what the team is capable of.

“I’m not sure any of our adjustments defensively worked tonight to be honest with you,” Haagsma said. “Continuing to switch defenses finally did get them to miss a couple of shots. I think what we did is we just executed a little bit better on offense in the last four minutes than they did. It was a great ball game with two really great teams.”

Valley Christian will play Monument Valley Saturday at 6 p.m. for the 3A championship at Veteran's Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.