Reflections on a semester of covering Arizona Border Sports

In a college semester that went by faster than any other Arizona border sports found ways to cover sports ranging from basketball to football to volleyball to baseball.

We covered the highs and the lows of athletes, coaches and even owners at every level: High School, College and Professional.

We analyze, scrutinize, questioned and explored the border’s greatest athletes. Where we found deserving players such as Matt Inman of Yuma High School obtain scholarship offers from South Dakota State and Western New Mexico.

Juan Suarez, a basketball star at Nogales High School received and is going to Western New Mexico as well.

Andy Garcia found a way into five of our blog entires as his statistics are out of this world: 24 touchdowns while averaging 9.2 yards a carry. Can you imagine being Nogales coach Vince Villanucci?

Basically the game plan is hand the ball off to Andy and let him average nearly a first down every time he touches the football. Andy became one of Arizona’s “Top 50 athletes for 2008” and had an amazing year leading Nogales to a 6-4 record.

During our coverage of Arizona Border Sports, Professional Baseball left south Tucson in the form of a Sidewinder…

Then came back in the form of a Toro.

Hot topics of social concern were addressed in our piece: “Steroids, Athletes, and.....Nogales?” Steroids is and always will be linked to sports. With the information that continuously proves everyday that these drugs will toxically destroy your insides, we hope the story becomes another piece in the puzzle helping to fight against these destructive chemicals.

What could not be overlooked is the huge lacking in media coverage at the border.

The lacking coverage lead to a lot of news and insights being missed or overlooked. In sports, the best border athletes are being overlooked as recruiters know there is a lot of difficulty in getting to areas like Nogales to watch these athletes.

At Arizona Border Sports we spent a lot of time naming names and following what the biggest sport story was at the border at that point, whether it is Nogales football or our story, “Top Prospects to look out for this High School football season,” where we covered the top football prospects in places ranging from Yuma to Nogales to Sierra Vista.

We hope this blog was able to get these names out and be a tool to get sports enthusiasts living along the border a chance to hear and read about what the hottest topic was in sports that week.

Apache basketball hopes to build on past season’s success

Last season, Nogales High School was able to make the Class 4A-I state tournament with senior standout Juan Suarez averaging 15.9 points a game.

Suarez, a 5-10 guard who made All-District and Honorable Mention in the All-state rankings will not be easy to replace.

Suarez signed a letter of intent to play for Western New Mexico and will be playing college basketball in Silver City for the next four years.

Suarez was the 10th-best scorer in Southern Arizona, averaged 8 assists and stole the ball three times while shooting 41 percent, these stats say one thing: It will be very tricky for Apache coach Ricardo De La Riva to find a way to replace this output.

De La Riva’s conflict is to find a way to build on the past success while missing his standout guard.

The Apaches were 22-7 last year overall while 14-4 in the regular season, a very respectable record for which the Apaches hope to obtain continued success. The team finished second to Cienega in the Kino 4A regiona and lost a heartbreaking 68-67 game in the first round of the playoffs.

The Apaches play 21 games this year with 12 home games.

Highlight games to watch out for is the November 24 opening regular season game at Canyon Del Oro High School, a school that consistently puts out winning teams and plays tough basketball.

CDO always has a respectable basketball team and plays highly regarded basketball. The score from this game should be a strong indicator right away of what kind of team De La Riva has this year without his college bound standout Suarez.

Other games to watch for are conference games versus Flowing Wells, Sahuaro, Desert View, Cienega and Sabino. Nogales is at a disadvantage in that they travel more than any team in their division because of the location of their schools.

Imagine traveling an hour to play basketball once to twice a week and you can see how the team will need De La Riva to keep them sharp, hungry and mentally acute throughout the season.

A season that will stretch from November 24th until the closing game February 4th. If Nogales can build on past success a playoff is scheduled to start later in February.

Nogales High School Football ends season on high note

When we last covered the Nogales High School Football team they were 5-1 and had arguably their biggest game of the season right over the horizon.

Well, a lot has happened since then, and not much of it is all that good.

Since that 5-1 start where playoff hopes were high and the team looked like it had one of the most potent offenses in the state, Nogales went 1-3.

A team that averaged 46 points through winning five of their first six games managed to average 30 points a game in their last four games.

Another strange discrepancy is found in that they gave up 28 points a game to opponents. This shows the erratic play of the Apaches, actually averaging scoring more points than they gave up, and yet went 1-3.

One would think for this to happen Nogales would have to be losing a lot of close games but the average margin of difference between what they scored and their opponents scored was over 20 points in those last four games.

So how does a team manage to average scoring more points than they give up and then go on to a 1-3 record?

Well, the scores of these last four games shows that Nogales as a football team is quite erratic in their play.

That huge game against Sabino that the team needed to stay atop the division ended up in a 33-35 loss. The Apaches managed to give up five touchdowns to Sabino’s senior running back Scott Brown and then it really got bad.

Their next game was against Flowing Wells, which ended the season 5-5. Nogales by all intensive purposes should win this game if they want to say they are a team to beat. Instead they lossed 21-31 and that pretty much ended their season. Even senior sensation and Arizona Border Sports favorate Andy Garcia couldn’t get out of the funk, he rushed for -2 yards in this loss.

And then it gets really bad. Against a Cienega team that would win the division Nogales dropped a 13-42 bomb.

This would bring their loss total to three in a row. You would think the team had nothing left to play for but showed their pride and fighting spirit by ending the season with a 56-14 victory over bottom feeder Desert View (2-8, 0-5 in their conference).

A once promising season may have ended in disappointment but at Arizona Border Sports we are still hoping that senior sensation Andy Garcia gets some college attention. He is constantly referred to as the player to watch for at Nogales, consistently carried the load and had some insane games along the season (against Cholla he managed to average 25 yards a carry, he is special).

Garcia rushed for 9.1 yards a carry on average this season and scored 25 touchdowns, Let’s hope he can represent the border at the next level.

Here's a video from their opening game of the season, when the team showed so much promise and pulled off a 61-0 blow out over Rio Rico.

Douglas High School Football: Started with a bang and ended with a whimper

A season starting with a 35-0 rout of Bisbee High School will end this week as the Douglas High School Bulldogs will play their final game of the season at Amphitheatre High School Friday, November 7th at 7:00 pm. The Bulldogs hope a season that started with serious ambitions of a promise can end on a high note, a win will bring the Bulldogs to a 3-7 record while moving them to 2-4 in the division.


The opening game of season versus Bisbee had the Bulldogs optimistic about the future of their season, "Playing Bisbee means a lot," Douglas assistant coach Gus Eniquez said. "It was electric, and the kids went out and took it to them.”


Eniquez comments after the game showed his high hopes for a dominant Douglas offense and a fiery defense this season, “The difference in the game was the offensive line holes for the running backs,” he said, “Our defense shut them down and forced four fumbles."


Douglas plays in the tough Class 4A, Division II, Gila Region where four of the conferences seven teams have winning records. Still the team does obtain respect from opponents and is known as a school that should not be overlooked.


"Any time you go down to Douglas, you know they're tough; got to bring your A-game,'' Catalina Foothills High School Falcons coach Matt Johnson said after beating the team 29-0.


Johnson admits the score of the game does not reflect the will and determination of the Douglas Bulldogs on the field, "They did a good job being prepared, we brought our best and luckily we came out on top.”


Still the difficulty of the Bulldog’s schedule cannot be overlooked. When looking at the very difficult schedule they had to play I could not help but notice that the combined record of the 7 teams the Douglas Bulldogs lost to was 43-21. By High School football standards that is an extremely difficult schedule.


They managed to play in one season: A first place in their division 9-1 Palo Verde Team, a first place in their division 7-2 Cienega team and a 2nd place in their division 8-1 Santa Rita team.


Even the Nogales Apache football team who we have covered extensively on this blog rolled in as Arizona Border Sports favorite Andy Garcia ran for 316 yards of total offense and scored 4 touchdowns in the Douglas Tiger’s 34-16 loss at Nogales.


Still there is optimism to be found in the individual highlights that came along the season. The Douglas team is full of youth. Junior Quarterback Carlos Teran led the team in passing yards with 304 yards, including a 9/18 153 yard 3 Touchdown game versus Rio Rico.


Sophomore A.J. Acosta led the team in rushing with 209 yards and a 7.0 yard a carry average during the season. His personal best game was versus Bisbee where he managed to rush for 77 yards on ten caries and score a touchdown. Junior Joel Bello led the team in receiving yards with 100 and a 14 yard a catch average.


After such a tough schedule and with all of their team leaders returning there is hope in Douglas for a much more successful campaign in 2009. All of their youngsters have had a chance to develop and have seen the best competition Arizona has to offer, next season can start with a bang and end with a bang.