Sedona junior high basketball season opens with wins2 min read

By
Christopher Fox Graham
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James Alagna, playing for Sedona Red Rock Junior High School boys basketball A team, goes up for a shot against the Beaver Creek School Bobcats on Tuesday, Nov. 15, in auxiliary gym at Sedona Red Rock High School. Both the A and B Scorpions teams defeated Beaver Creek. Jordan Reece/Larson Newspapers

The Sedona Red Rock Junior High School is off to a good start on the season with both the A and B boys basketball teams defeating Beaver Creek School on Tuesday, Nov. 15.

In the A team’s 32-23 victory, shooting guard and small forward Micha Johnson led with 15 points, followed by Joseph Johnson with 8 and Carlos Landaverde with 4.

The team had “pretty good defense,” said head coach Pedro Ortega Sr., and is going through the motions to build a solid team.

The offense still needs some work, Ortega said, but it was still early in the season and he said he is confident the players would get stronger as the season moves forward. The team had a good practice Wednesday, Nov. 16, he said.

Sedona played Clarkdale-Jerome School on Thursday, Nov. 17. Scores were not available by press time.

There are 10 players on the A team and 12 on the B team, some who Ortega coached last year as West Sedona School head boys basketball coach, others who played for WSS’ former rival, Big Park Community School.

“They merged pretty quickly, they forget the past,” he said. “Normally they wait until high school when they’re freshmen to merge, now we merge in the seventh- and eighth-grade. I think everything is running smoothly, everyone is making adjustments to the new school so it hasn’t been a big issue so far.”

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This will be Ortega’s 12th year teaching youth basketball, but the first for the newly-created SRRJHS. WSS and BPCS were kindergarten-to-eighth-grade schools until a decision by the SOCSD Governing Board last year moved the seventh- and eighth-graders to the Sedona Red Rock High School campus and created the new junior high.

The SRRJHS basketball teams will play 18 to 20 games this season, depending on how several tournaments line up, plus the regional finals tournament at the end of the season.

“I’m looking forward to it because we have a great, strong team and this will be fun teaching the fundamentals to these kids and go strong. So I think we’re going to be just fine this season. It’s going to be a fun season, I think,” Ortega said.

Christopher Fox Graham

Christopher Fox Graham is the managing editor of the Sedona Rock Rocks News, The Camp Verde Journal and the Cottonwood Journal Extra. Hired by Larson Newspapers as a copy editor in 2004, he became assistant manager editor in October 2009 and managing editor in August 2013. Graham has won awards for editorials, investigative news reporting, headline writing, page design and community service from the Arizona Newspapers Association. Graham has also been featured in Editor & Publisher magazine. He lectures on journalism and First Amendment law and is a nationally recognized performance aka slam poet. Retired U.S. Army Col. John Mills, former director of Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs referred to him as "Mr. Slam Poet."

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Christopher Fox Graham
Christopher Fox Graham is the managing editor of the Sedona Rock Rocks News, The Camp Verde Journal and the Cottonwood Journal Extra. Hired by Larson Newspapers as a copy editor in 2004, he became assistant manager editor in October 2009 and managing editor in August 2013. Graham has won awards for editorials, investigative news reporting, headline writing, page design and community service from the Arizona Newspapers Association. Graham has also been featured in Editor & Publisher magazine. He lectures on journalism and First Amendment law and is a nationally recognized performance aka slam poet. Retired U.S. Army Col. John Mills, former director of Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs referred to him as "Mr. Slam Poet."