Salpointe beat Flowing Wells 55-25 Tuesday night at home to move to 7-2 overall and 4-1 in power-ranking games and the Caballeros are now 8-4 overall and 4-3 in ranking games. Flowing Wells will have a week off before traveling to Canyon del Oro (1-4) on the 19th, followed by a game at home against Marana (0-7) on the 21st.

The game started close after the Caballeros erased an opening 7-0 run by the Lancers to cut the lead down to 13-11 with 50.2 seconds left in the first quarter but 6-foot-4 inch senior Ajong Lual blocked a shot attempt to tie the game and then freshman Aryanna Kollasch raced down and scored with 1.3 seconds left to give Salpointe a 15-11 lead. That blocked shot set off an 11-0 run and the Lancers never looked back, taking a 30-16 lead to the half.

Lual is in her first season with the Lancers and her three blocked shots on the night was part of a puzzle the Caballeros were unable to solve. The Lancers have size, length, speed and depth, which allowed for movement up the court via passes to negate the quickness of the Caballeros. Lual only scored six points but she pulled in eight rebounds to lead the team.

Kayla Bailey goes up on Jayci Nelson. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

Junior Allison Even scored a game-high 17 points and fellow junior Jordan Watts added nine. Even is on track to break 1,000 career points which means the Lancers could have three players reach that milestone this year when Ironwood Ridge transfer Sidney Anderson joins the group officially on Jan. 16 and when junior Taliyah Henderson returns completely from an injury she suffered in July. Simply, this team is loaded – again.

Salpointe took second place in the 4A Conference in 2021 before winning it all in 2022. The team was ranked too high to compete in the 4A playoffs last year and the Lancers ended their playoff run in the quarterfinal round of the Open Division, one of the top eight teams in the state regardless of classification. That sort of program validation is rare for Southern Arizona but the Lancers’ résumé is expected to get thicker. The only question now is will one basketball be enough?

For Flowing Wells, the loss of size in Sydney Capen (6-1) and scoring from Navine Mallon (17 points per game) to graduation will mean finding new ways to score and senior Kayla Bailey appears to be one avenue after she scored 16 points against the athletic Lancer defense. The Caballeros took second place in the 5A Conference in 2021 and the 4A Conference in 2022 before ending in the 4A quarterfinals last year. The top eight teams in the 4A Conference will advance to the Open Division again which could help a team like Flowing Wells down the stretch once the team finds its stride.