No. 1 Sabino outlasted No. 2 Page 42-35 Saturday night to win the 3A state championship held at the Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum and the game lived up to everything one would expect from the top two seeds fighting for a state championship.

If you do a little research you will find the Page Sand Devils appear 15 times in the AIA archives when it comes to state championship games, all starting with a runner-up finish 1989 under head coach Michael Desper. Jim Adkins led the program to a title in 1991 and MIke Beall followed in 1999. In the past decade, Justin Smith led the team to titles in 2012 and 2015 and Ryan Whitehorse joined that elite group with state championships in 2018 and 2019 but Whitehorse almost missed the trip this year if not for a late surge by his team the night before.

Miquedah Taliman and Torrance Begay came up with a couple of big stops and a couple of scores in the final 49 seconds to turn back ALA-Gilbert North in that semifinal match where the Sand Devils prevailed 37-35. If you do the math, Page appears in a state final almost 50 percent of the time since 1989 and 2020 added to that equation.

On the other bench, the Sabercats made their fourth trip to the final Saturday with John Bart winning it all in 1990 and current head coach Jaamal Rhodes also benefited from a late run in the semifinals, coming back from a 19-11 halftime deficit to defeat Ganado 39-32 Friday night. Sabino (28-4) was removed from the state playoffs prior to the semifinal round in 2019 due to an AIA violation.

Begay came up big for Page (25-6) against Sabino with 12 points and six rebounds and she helped fuel a 7-0 run to erase a 17-11 lead by Sabino with 3:41 left in the first half. Down 18-17 in the third, the Sabercats went on to build a 27-21 lead with 1:06 left in the quarter but the San Devils went on another run to retake the lead, 28-27.

The Sabercats clawed back up to a 33-30 lead with 3:34 left in the game but both teams went cold and started trading misses and turnovers until Kiya Dorroh hit a couple of free throws to put Sabino up 35-30 with 46.4 seconds left.

The Sabercats would hit nine free throws down the stretch to hold the Sand Devils back despite a 3-point play from Begay to cut the lead down to 37-35 with 19.7 seconds left. Doty made four free throws to seal the 42-35 win.

Doty led Sabino with 15 points, Lauryn Manion had 12 and Dorroh scored nine and pulled down 15 rebounds. Begay had 12 points and Camryn Nockideneh scored 10.

Page (Andy Morales/AZPreps365.com)