Boulder Creek is making believers

Boulder Creek has not been acting much like a first year sports program. Across the board, the Jaguars have made believers out of the rest of the state, who probably didn't even know where the school was located before the teams made the jump to varsity this school year.

The boys volleyball team is still hoping to make the biggest splash of all with hopes of going all the way in just its first year as a team.
Boulder Creek got a taste of the best in the state last week in Marana when the Jaguars took fifth in the Mountain View Invitational, which featured some of the best 5A Division I and II teams in the state. Coach Chad Speer, who was recently hired as the Jaguars' girls volleyball coach starting this fall, called in to let us know that his team went 6 4 down south and showed it could compete with some of the best teams in Arizona.

The Jaguars beat host Mountain View, St. Mary's, Cholla, Amphitheater, Rincon and Marana, but lost in three games to Ironwood Ridge and Flowing Wells. Sabino eliminated the Jaguars in bracket play 25 18, 25 23.

"It was a good tournament for us," Speer said. "We're right there. We could have beat Ironwood Ridge and Flowing Wells."

RIGHT ON TRACK

The Cactus Shadows track team turned in an excellent performance March 18 at the Phoenix Christian Invitational. The Falcons' boys team took third out of 22 teams, while the girls finished sixth out of 20 teams.

Highlights included Mike Pope winning the boys long jump and setting the school record in the triple jump with a leap of 40 feet, 10 inches, which was good enough for second place.

Patrick Cronin (boys 1,600 meters), Austin Bailey (boys 200), Natalie Omundson (girls 1,600) and Andrea Hatch (girls 200) also turned in second place performances. Bailey also took third in the 100.

Lacey Modzeleski placed in three events-the high jump, long jump and 300 meter hurdles.

"This was a good showing for our first invite of the season," Cactus Shadows coach Patty Egan said. "It was pretty windy so times were not great, but they were definitely respectable. We are looking like a more balanced team this year-scoring points in more than one or two event areas."

And don't forget to check out the Freshman Showcase at 9:30 a.m. this weekend. Cactus Shadows hosts the annual event for the top freshmen in the state April 1.

GRIPE OF THE WEEK

Thumbs down to umpires working at last week's SDO DV Softball Festival at O'Connor for telling our photographer he could not shoot during O'Connor's March 25 morning game.

Never in my more than 15 years working on newspapers have I had a photographer asked to leave a baseball and softball field for being an "obstruction." Ironically, he had just finished shooting another game on an adjacent field moments before without incident.

Maybe the Arizona Interscholastic Association feels a little out of focus.

If you have a local sports item you'd like to submit, e mail to jason@thedesertadvocate.com, or call (480) 488 1204.