Richard Obert‘s Top 5 Arizona high school football games this week
The Republic’s high school sports insider, Richard Obert, lists his top 5 high school football games in Arizona this week and explains his choices.
The 2024 AIA fall badminton state championships have concluded, with Hamilton winning the Division I title and Ironwood repeating as Division II Champions. The singles and doubles championships were held before last week’s team finals. Here’s a recap of the team championship matches:
Division I
Hamilton was looking to avenge last year’s finals loss to Sunnyslope and did just that, completing a perfect season. The No. 1-seeded Huskies defeated the No. 2 Vikings 5-3, to win their second title in three years, with the doubles matches being the difference.
In the first singles match, Nihira Sane of Hamilton defeated Annabelle Schlesinger of Sunnyslope 21-9, 21-12. The second match between the Huskies’ Katheryn Yi and Viking’s Eleni Economopoulos was a back-and-forth contest with Economopoulos winning 21-17, 22-24, 21-16, to earn a point for Sunnyslope.
Hamilton’s Hayley Koh took care of business during the third match when she faced Layton Hunter. 21-17, 21-13 to give Hamilton another point. The Huskies then gathered momentum when Shreya Deshpande survived a close game against Addie Orihuela 21-19, 21-18.
Sunnyslope’s Delaney Chappell downed Pariva Chappell of Hamilton, 21-17, 21-5. Sunnyslope’s Brianna Valente defeated Hamilton’s Sunan Zhang, 21-16, 21-18.
The game was tied at 3 and has moved into doubles for the tiebreaker. In the first double game, Hamiltons’ Katheryn Yi and Shreya Deshpande took on Eleni Economopoilos and Addie Orihuela. The Hamilton seemed too much for Sunnyslope, winning 21-9, 22-20.
That left the teams tied.
“Leaving singles three and three was nerve-racking, but after watching them the first few points of doubles, I knew they had recentered themselves, and they were playing really well together,” said Hamilton head coach Lauren Rosales.
In the doubles matches, Deshpande and Yi of Hamilton defeated Sunnyslopes Economopoulos and Orihuela 21-9, 22-20. Hamilton’s Sane and Koh then defeated Sunnyslope’s Hunter and Schlesinger 21-17, 21-11 to secure the title.
“The girls were very focused on beating Sunnyslope this year,” Rosales said. “They are always such a well-coached and competitive team. They show up in the big moments and are tough competitors.”
Division II
No. 2 seed Ironwood, the defending D-II champion, pulled off a repeat in defeating No. 1 Chaparral, 5-2. It was their fourth state title in the past five years.
In the first singles match, Chaparral’s Hadley Huffman defeated Ironwood’s Madison Nguyen, 19-21, 22-20, 21-16, to earn the first point for the Firebirds. Chaparral gained another point in the second match when Addie Seidel defeated Sasha Tijore, 18-21, 21-15, 21-18.
From there, it was all Ironwood.
The Eagles’ Aylssa Ridgley defeated Addie Scott in the third match, 21-12, 21-14. Ironwood sophomore Sophia Tijore took on Emerson Lewis in the fourth match and gained another point for Ironwood, winning 21-10, 21-11.
During the fifth match, the Eagles’ Mariyah Peru-Ray cruised past Chaparral’s Mckenzie Tover, 21-5, 21-5. In the final singles matchup, Ironwood’s Alexis Jones defeated Pallavi Narayanan, 21-5, 21-14.
In the doubles match, Ironwood’s Nguyen and Jones teamed downed Chaparral’s Tover and Peries for the winning point, 21-10, 21-12.
“Winning back-to-back is a great accomplishment as it shows that the program is very good and that you are not just a one-hit wonder,” said Ironwood head coach Brett Stafford. “It also shows how hard the girls work to make sure that they do not fall off year after year.”
