One of the biggest early battles in the state took place in Oro Valley Tuesday night with Pusch Ridge erasing a 13-point deficit to overtake Gilbert Christian 53-50 to open up the winter season in the Tucson area. Gilbert Christian won a 2A state title in 2017 under Kurt Keener and a runner-up finish in the 3A Conference last year. The success was expected under Keener who coached Birmingham Detroit Country Day to nine state titles before moving to Arizona in 2014.

Keener coached future NBA standouts like Chris Webber in Michigan and he moved to Arizona with 678 career wins. He has over 800 career wins now with two of those wins resulting in state titles (2015 and 2017). The loss of over a dozen games due to the COVID delay will take time to overcome but Keener has all the pieces to put together another successful season.

One of those pieces is sophomore forward Albert Wilson III (6-6, 240) who led all scorers with 20 points but it was his absence on the court in the fourth quarter due to foul trouble that helped fuel the Pusch Ridge comeback – that and an incredible performance from Ryan Robinson, scoring 13 of his 19 points in the final moments.

Connor Payne put Gilbert Christian up 44-34 with 1:42 left in the third but Robinson hit a couple free throws to make it 44-36 heading to the final period. Wilson made it 46-36 but he picked up his fourth foul and Robinson made four free throws and scored a bucket to cut the lead down to 46-42 with 5:08 left. Alex Manning made a free throw and Jordon Vorhees made two more and the Knight lead was down to 46-45 with 4:06 left.

Wilson checked back in and he put Gilbert Christian up 48-45 with 3:27 left. Kannon Jewell scored and Robinson scored again to give the Lions a 49-48 lead with 1:08 left. It was the first lead for the Lions since the beginning of the second quarter when the team built a 16-11 lead only to have Wilson erase it with five straight points.

Wilson put the Knights up 50-49 with 45 seconds left but Robinson scored again with 31.3 seconds left to take a 51-50 lead and he made another free throw to help the Lions take a 52-50 lead. Gilbert Christian had two shots to tie the game in the final seconds but Jack Franco put the Lions up 53-50 with 1.4 seconds left and Vorhees intercepted the inbounds pass to seal the comeback victory.

Erik Michaud coached Pusch Ridge to a runner-up finish in 2019 and team made the playoffs last year but fell to eventual state champion ALA-Queen Creek in the second round of the 24-team bracket. Michaud lost his top three scorers to graduation but this version seems to be a bit quicker with a guard-oriented offense.

Robinson had his 19 points, Jewell added 11, Vorhees had 10, Manning finished with 7, Tanner Rozon had 5 and Franco scored. For Gilbert Christian, Wilson has his 20, Ayden Hoyt scored 14, Brad Rauland had 6, Max Lightfoot scored 4, Keon Talgo had 3, PJ Segerstrom finished with 2 and Payne scored.

Gilbert Christian (0-1) will host San Tan Foothills (0-1) on Friday and Pusch Ridge (1-0) will host Show Low (0-1) on Saturday.

Ryan Robinson scored 13 of his 19 points down the stretch. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)