Scouts No. 1 in 3A North
By Manuel Jesus
Special to the Times
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This past Saturday Window Rock won the Arizona 3A North conference championship.
Window Rock dethroned last year's conference champion, Winslow, despite both finishing the regular season with 5-1 conference records. Window Rock won the conference after beating Winslow last Saturday in their first game of a doubleheader.
Window Rock earned the top seed in this weekend's 3A North Region baseball tournament. Winslow is the second seed and both teams received byes into the semifinals, which will be played Friday in Winslow at 4 p.m. (5 p.m. MST) and 7 p.m. (8 p.m. MST).
The championship game is on Saturday at 1 p.m. (2 p.m. MST) and the third place game will be played at 10 a.m. (11 a.m. MST) also on Saturday.
In 3A North, five schools are in the top 16 of the 3A baseball power rankings. Winslow is No. 2 followed by Window Rock at No. 3, Monument Valley at No. 7, Chinle at No. 11 and Holbrook at No. 12. Globe is No. 1.
The 2008 Arizona 3A state baseball championships are set for May 2 and 3 at the Surprise baseball complex. On May 9 and May 10, the semifinals and the championship game will be held.
Holbrook, the No. 3 seed in the regional tournament, played Wednesday against No. 7 Ganado. Results were not available at press time. Winslow will play the winner of the Holbrook-Ganado game on Friday in the semifinals.
The Hornets, who hadn't won a conference game all season (0-6, 5-19) upset No.6 Tuba City 10-5 in the opening round of the regional tournament on Monday.
Tuba City coach Michael Belinte said the Warriors just played with a lot of mental mistakes.
" We just couldn't get the third out. When we needed the last out, we gave them four and five outs. We just had a lot of mental mistakes," he said.
Tuba City finished the season 9-18.
In other first round games, No. 4 Monument Valley beat No. 5 Chinle in a wild game on Monday in Kayenta, 13-12.
Monument Valley will play Window Rock on Friday in the second semifinal game.
Window Rock coach Perry Coggins said the team had a great season led by the seniors.
"We were a lot more disciplined," he said. "The kids worked to improve and they did. We had a lot of good leadership from our seniors.
"The senior leadership was the key. We even had a freshman (Lacey Hickson) who surprised a lot of us. He's an above average freshman," said Coggin.
Window Rock ended its season 20-7 and 5-1 in conference.
Winslow ended the regular season 20-8 and 5-1 in conference.