Big Park Community School’s 47-8 home victory Tuesday, Jan. 26, wasn’t about Clarkdale-Jerome School being that bad.

The Coyotes girls basketball team, undefeated through 14 Verde Valley Conference games and a tournament at Clarkdale over Christmas, is just that good.

“Now you’re playing basketball,” head coach Kirk Westervelt told his starters as they went into a Clarkdale timeout following a 15-0 start.

As one of the two eighth-grade titans of scoring for the undefeated Coyotes, the Kraken — the nickname given by Westervelt to his daughter, Mary — was released on the Mingus Rams for 23 points.

That would lead all scorers. Tashanae Kristofors and her equally titanic teammate in the post, Morgan “Medusa” Fritz, each added 10 to clinch the Coyotes’ fifth straight regular-season conference title.

The news doesn’t get any better for the rest of the teams in the Verde Valley Conference, as they have to come to Big Park for the postseason tournament Friday and Saturday, Jan. 29 and 30, beginning at 1 p.m.

The Coyotes started the game in a full-court press and kept it up throughout the first half — and beyond.

Forward Jacki King propelled a 25-2 halftime lead off a second-quarter steal, after which she drove three-quarters of the court only to stop and pop a 16-foot jumper, hitting nothing but net from the top of the key.

Add rebounding forward Grace Hafner, and those five eighth-graders were the only players available to play Jan. 26.

So Kirk Westervelt had no bench to empty in the second half, as it consisted entirely of girls who had already played the previous game for the Big Park B team.

“They’re quick-handed,” Westervelt said of his starters. “So long as there’s no foul trouble, they’re awesome.”

That is the vulnerability the Coyotes will need to overcome in the tournament, exposed Jan. 19 by Camp Verde Middle School, the No. 2 seed.

“It’s going to be a tough tournament, but we’re up for it,” Westervelt said. “These girls play physical basketball.”

Despite winning, 36-30, over the Cowboys, only Fritz and Mary Westervelt scored as King had to hit the bench with two fouls in the first 20 seconds.

“I had to pull her,” Kirk Westervelt said. “We couldn’t press.”

Still, Westervelt’s team, which he has said may be his best as a Big Park coach, is on a mission.

“Top two,” he said. “They’ve got to get to the state finals and win this conference tournament first.”

If the Coyotes win their conference tournament, he’ll look to take them to a state tournament against mostly schools from the Navajo Nation beginning Friday, Feb. 5, in Chinle.

For Verde Valley Conference tournament start times and locations, please see the Friday, Jan. 29, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.