No. 2 Flagstaff beat No. 4 Pueblo 68-65 Thursday night at the Arizona Veteran's Memorial Coliseum to win the second state championship for the Eagles, but the first since 1992. The victory under head coach Tyrone Johnson came one year after the Eagles made it to the 4A championship game only to fall to state power Salpointe Catholic. Johnson will lose Sage Begay to graduation this year but he has plenty of talent returning for another run next winter. This is how dynasties are built.

One of his obvious talents is freshman sensation Bell Burcar, who collected 19 points to go along with a game-high 11 rebounds to help seal the victory for Flagstaff, especially with Pueblo senior standout Victoria Cazares pouring in 27 points to give the Warriors a shot at the first title in program history. Flagstaff held two big leads in the game, a 22-13 lead with 5:29 left in the first half and a 52-43 lead moments into the fourth quarter, only to see Cazares, and her younger sister America Cazares, lead impressive runs to erase any thoughts of an easy victory for either team.

The last run was capped by a 3-pointer from America to tie the game up at 52-52 with 5:16 left in the game. At that point, it looked like the last team with the ball would be cutting down the nets, but Flagstaff responded with six straight points to go up 58-52 with 3:26 left. That lead was cut down to 62-60 with under two minutes left but the Warriors were unable to corral two straight rebound opportunities and Unique Begishie scored off the second opportunity to give the Eagles a 64-60 lead with 1:50 left. As it turned out, that might have been the exchange that saved the night for the Eagles.

“We talked about this game and we knew Pueblo would keep fighting,” Johnson said. “We told our girls even if you take a lead they will fight back and it wasn't over till the end. We saw what that team could do firsthand and my girls were poised and didn’t panic.”

Still, the Warriors had two more opportunities to produce a tie, only to see the Eagles go up 66-61 with 49.5 seconds left. Even then, the Warriors refused to back down and the team got the ball back in their hands with 8.6 seconds left, down 66-63. Sara Galindo made two free throws to cut the lead down to 66-65 and the Warriors had one more shot to tie the game after the Eagles went back up 68-65 but it was determined that Victoria Cazares mishandled the ball with 2 seconds left, negating her made basket which would have sent the game to overtime.

“I love my team because, even though we were down twice, we still kept pushing through and I think we tied it. We just never gave up,” Victoria Cazares said. “I'm just going to remember our talking at practice all of our teammates are really goofy, really goofy, and I will miss being coached by Izzy (Galindo),” Victoria added on what she will take from this team.

Pueblo head coach Ismael Galindo gathered his team together before the trophy presentation. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

 

Burcar had her 19 points and Morning Honani added 15. Begay scored 12 and Jazmine Dugi had nine. For Pueblo, Victoria Cazares scored her 27 points, America Cazares added 18 and Myla Truitt scored nine. In all, both teams took a combined 56 3-pointers making only 17. The makes and the misses had a direct effect on the outcome of the game.

Ismael Galindo led Pueblo to a state final in 2018 where his Warrior squad fell to Seton Catholic. His daughter Ilyssa Diamond Galindo led that team and she graduated with 1,475 career points. Victoria Cazares will graduate with a program-high 1,839 points. Like Johnson, Galindo will be saying goodbye to a couple of standouts but he’s been here before.

“It felt like every time we made a run, they would hit a shot. So it was it was climbing back from that hole that we dug ourselves in,” Galindo said. “When I took the job I said I'm going to win the state championship and I realize it's not all just that, but, like I said in 2018, we'll be back and here we are. We didn't win it, but we were closer. I'm going say it again. We will be back.”

Johnson lost Gracelyn Nez and her 1,269 career points last year but he found a way to make it all work again this year. As mentioned before, Johnson is also expecting to be here again.

“So next year, we have a lot of girls coming back,” Johnson added. “You get a taste of it and you feel like coming back multiple times.”