Boys hoops: Mitch Lightfoot scores 29 to lead Gilbert Christian to victory

January 9, 2016 by Andy Morales, AZPreps365


Mitch Lightfoot (Andy Morales/AZPreps365.com)

No. 8 Gilbert Christian held on for a 51-48 win at No. 7 Catalina Foothills in a rare Division II battle played on a Saturday night. Senior standout Mitch Lightfoot led all scorers with 29 points.

The Knights took a 12-6 lead with 3:32 left in the first quarter and increased it to 24-6 after the Falcons failed to score for almost nine minutes. Catalina Foothills responded by going on a 12-2 run over the last 2:45 of the second quarter to cut the lead down to 26-18.

Spencer Lewis sparked the run thanks to a 3-pointer and a couple of buckets along with a 3-pointer from Jared Irwin to close out the half.

Gilbert Christian won the D-II state championship last year with Cameron Satterwhite and Lightfoot averaging 18 points apiece. Satterwhite suffered an injury over the summer and was not able to play alongside Lightfoot this year.

The loss of Satterwhite has led to more even scoring by the Knights but the bulk of the points still come from Lightfoot and he has increased his output to 21 points per game.

Lightfoot transferred from Ironwood Ridge to Gilbert Christian after his sophomore year and he committed to play for Kansas in October with the University of Arizona, Stanford, St. John’s and Utah figuring in the mix.

Nik Nehls is both the emotional and scoring leader of the Falcons but he was limited in shots and finished with nine points while Irwin and Sam Beskind scored 13 points each in the loss.

Lightfoot scored nine points in the third quarter to keep Gilbert Christian up 40-28 but Irwin and Beskind combined for 16 points in the fourth quarter to help tie the game up 48-48 with 1:15 left in the game.

It was a furious comeback and Catalina Foothills had the ball with a chance to take the lead but a missed layup with 45 seconds left led to an easy basket by Lightfoot at the other end to put the Knights up 50-48 with 28.2 seconds left.

Gilbert Christian would add another free throw after another Falcon miss for the 51-48 final.

Nate Graville scored nine points to go along with the 29 scored by Lightfoot.

Gilbert Christian is now 9-5 overall, 5-1 in Division II and 1-1 in Section VI while Catalina Foothills is 11-6 and 5-2 in D-II. The Falcons will begin sectional play next Friday.