Highland basketball coach Miner Webster is identified by his team in a postgame celebration of record victory No. 779 making him the state's all-time winningest girls coach. (Photo courtesy of Rory Self)

The victories used to arrive about 30 a season. Now they occur about 20 at a clip.

But they're stil coming.

Highland's girls basketball team carved out a convincing 54-32 win, the 779th for longtime coach Miner Webster on Friday morning placing him alone at the top of the girls coaching ranks in state history.

The victory, Highland's third this year in as many game games, came in pool play of its annual Lady Hawk Invitational at Highland HS. The win was the 779th of Webster's 29th year coaching girls and allowed him to pass Winslow coaching guru Don Petranovich. Webster has a career winning percentage of .850 and has eight state titles between his time at Gilbert High and Highland. In attendance with 600-plus wins and 500-plsu wins, respectively, to show their appreciation were Seton Catholic's Karen Self and Valley Christian's Scott Timmer.

As the final 20 seconds or so wound down, a contingent of Webster family members, former players and coaching contemporaries around the gymnasium heard the chant of MINER WEBSTER... MINER WEBSTER .. until the final buzzer sounded. 

Webster settled in after postgame handshakes with Desert Vista to address the crowd surrounded by his team and lead assistant Gene Valocchi.

"Thanks to the girls, all the girls from the 29 teams," Webster said. "We're all a team. That's what it's about."

Webster talked before the game about getting the record win as quickly as possible. hios team was listening. Highland recorded the record-setting triumph with exactly the kind of play Webster ascribed in the brief postgame chat.

Senior guard Alyssa Navarrete opened the game sinking a pair of long threes. Highland never trailed and gradually built on its lead as the game progressed. Navarrete sank four threes in the first period, leading the Lady Hawks to a 14-9 advantage. She didn't score in the second quarter, but six teammates added a basket, two free throws or one free throw to help improve the lead to 25-16 at intermission.

"Alyssa has that ability to score from out there," Webster said. "It was nice to get that kind of offense early. We played a pretty steady game. Overall it was our best game of the three so far."

Navarrete connected on two more threes in the third period (finished with a game-high 24 points). Highland put the game away helping to force seven Desert Vista turnovers while committing none in the period as the lead grew to 43-24.

Webster made wholesale changes a couple minutes into the final period and every Highland player ended up playing a couple minutes.

Madison Gola led Desert Vista (2-1) with 18 points.