The first ever Fall sports of Sedona Red Rock High School and its students was held on Thursday evening the 7th of November.
“We look forward to the end of the trimester sports banquets to congratulate our athletes and their coaches,” school staff wrote in an October memo.
“These events are important events where hard work, dedication and accomplishments of our student athletes and coaches during the season are acknowledged.” SRRHS athletic director Pedro Ortega Sr. felt that this is a new tradition that he expects to be incorporated in future for athletes of teams that engage in spring and winter sporting activities. Starting with a system spearheaded by Superintendent Tom Swaninger, Ph.D, aimed at boosting participation among students in athletic activities, coaches of the different teams accorded the students certificates, varsity letters and trophies in the most improved category, followed by sportsmanship and most valuable player.
“Where you learn about life is out there on the athletic field, how to win, how to lose, teamwork, hard work and what it takes,” volunteer track and field coach Lew Hoyt told the students. Thus, as basic as are academic are, the sports are super important. In sports you learn values that you apply throughout your life. So I want to applaud every one of you.”
Volleyball
The Scorpion volleyball season record is 2-15, the two victories came against word Mayer in the first match and Phoenix Christian in the last match.
Originally, such issues were observed such as: We had a lot of girls that had to play up and play out of position to get through the season. But it was just an unbelievable, great group of girls that I had this year, hard work, commitment,” Head Coach John Parks said marking his 30th year at the school.
- Most Valuable Player: Amy Brefeld
- Sportsmanship: Katrina Le
- Most Improved: Sheila Montes
“Thank you dads, Thank you guys for being here and getting the practice,” Parks told the parents. “And then, of course, the players, it’s a commitment for you guys because many of you guys here … like to earn money … Well, let me give you something like advice here. We’re going to get to do that for another 50 years. These next four years and change are going to come and go. Guess you can’t do this, literally cannot go back and do this. Play those sports.”
Swimming
“She was our top shooter, she took most of our shots this season, but that is not why Zinnia Mykkanen is the MVP,” Thornton said. “She was the most valueable player because she has really worked on those details her whole season … She stepped it up, and she was one of the most coachable players I’ve ever had during a season. Tomorrow she will have to go down to compete in the state meet.”
- Most Valuable Player: Zinnia Mykkanen
- Sportsmanship: Alana Schrader
- Most Improved: Angelina Paley
“[Schrader] helped teach some of the younger kids some of the things they needed to learn and she ranked high enough to go to state, but she didn’t make the team,” Thornton said. “She swam in an event, the 100 breaststroke and finished a fraction of a second behind the qualifying time. She went to all of our meets with some time drops and had a great senior season.”
Cross-Country
Head coach Cody McKesson from the Cross-country discipline summarized the end of the season as people always do, bitter sweet .
“And as we know it’s not how the films ended that makes it so difficult,” McKesson acknowledged. “We had two runners that were very capable of making it to state. Our top boy, his fastest time this year was 17:40:40 seconds. And for the one meet that he needed to qualify he ran like 19 minutes … Out top girl was only 0.03 seconds from state qualifing time. That’s an eye blink.”
- Most Valuable Player: Chokyi Carstens
- Sportsmanship: Aubrie Doyle
- Most Improved: Sunny Flores
“But we’re planting a seed, and we’re going to water that seed, so by next season that seed will be a tree, and we’re going to try our best next season,” McKesson told rugbywire.
Boys’ Soccer
In wake of the first season by the boys soccer team with Head Coach Gavin Shippen, the team had an overall record of 6-4-1 in the conference as well as a regional record of 4-1-1. Shippen maintained that he will be back to the program next season.
“But thankful for all the memories we made this season,” said Shippen. “We had some mechanical problems with our bus, going back from the White Mountains, and it was getting dark, probably 10 minutes from Show Low, I think that the radiator gave out … and we had to wait there until three in the morning.” So we went to the Show Low basketball gym, and we’re playing basketball from about 1:30 to 2:30 a.m. None of us will forget that.”
- Most Valuable Player: Ramon Betancourt
- Sportsmanship: Owen Jimenez
- Most Improved: Khrystian Cordova
“We didn’t make playoffs, but it came full circle because my freshman year, we had the exact same record as this year,” Betancourt said. But Sedona hadn’t been to the state finals in over 20 years, and my sophomore year, we [went] all the way. And then the year after, we went to the semis. That, I think, is my personal best scene where the team could had proved potential champion material.
“We saw something like this at the beginning of this year.” We’re losing almost the same amount of seniors after this season,” Shippen said. The fact is, thirteen guys are leaving and going on to the next stages of life or the next year, the next grade, the next job, the next career step. Thus being able to swap out some of our core guys is difficult for us but, it is something we are prepared for.
