2024 Flag Football

Marana impressive on consecutive nights in wins over Millennium & Sunnyside

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Marana, in its second year, faced Sunnyside, in its inaugural season, Tuesday night for the first time and prevailed 20-0 (Javier Morales/AllSportsTucson.com)

Marana is 10-1 and primed for a 6A playoff run after beating Goodyear Millennium in overtime at home Monday night followed by a 20-0 victory at upstart Sunnyside on Tuesday night.

The Tigers have the rest of the week off before playing their last two games of the regular season next week with a home game against Phoenix Xavier on Tuesday and a trip to Phoenix Desert Vista on Wednesday.

The game between No. 4 Marana (4-0 in the 6A Central) and No. 16 Xavier (5-4, 3-0) will likely be for the region title. Xavier hosts No. 6 Millennium (8-3, 3-1) on Thursday.

“It’s tough having those back-to-back games; it’s amazing to see our girls bounce back, not only physically but emotionally, especially after a big win,” said Marana coach Shaun Lara, whose team defeated Millennium 24-17 on Monday night.

No 19 Sunnyside (7-4, 1-3) has lost to Millennium and Marana in consecutive games, after a defeat at Millennium last week. The Blue Devils have three games left in the regular season against Tucson at home Thursday followed by road games against Nogales and Xavier next week in an attempt to get in the playoffs in their first season of existence.

The top 16 teams in 6A make the state playoff field.

Marana’s lone loss of the season was against Chandler Basha 21-20 in a non-region game Oct. 8 at Marana.

“We had a slow start but we’re slowly building up,” said Marana receiver/cornerback Madison Myers-Rebidas, who finished with seven receptions for 57 yards and two touchdowns against Sunnyside.

“Our loss against Basha, I think that really motivated us and got our energy back up. We’ve been on a roll now.”

Making Marana’s win in consecutive nights against Millennium and Sunnyside more impressive is the Tigers did it without their top player — Malaysia Roebuck, who is out for personal reasons.

The efficiency of calm and steady senior quarterback Ella Joplin has a lot to do with the Tigers’ resolve.

Joplin’s brother Elijah played much the same way for Marana, earning an Ed Doherty Award nomination his senior season in 2022.

Ella was accurate on most of Marana’s quick, short routes against Sunnyside, completing 34 of 42 attempts for 268 yards (average of 7.9 yards a completion) with a touchdown and interception.

“I’ve always been a receiver but I have a pretty good arm from other sports (including softball),” said Ella when asked if seeing her brother play motivated her to be a quarterback. “I kind of just jumped in.”

Marana jumped in to an early lead on its second possession of the game against Sunnyside as Ella methodically led the Tigers 69 yards for the score with plenty of quick short passes.

The nine-play drive consisted only of passes — with Ella completing all nine attempts — capped with a 2-yard touchdown toss to Myers-Rebidas with 2:56 left in the first quarter.

Two possessions later, Marana increased the lead to 10-0 on Peyton Sharp’s 20-yard field goal with 4:30 left in the second quarter. The Tigers took that lead into halftime.

Sunnyside had difficulty getting its offensive flow going against a Marana defense that recorded 11 sacks against Millennium on Monday night. The Blue Devils finished with 114 yards of total offense, led by talented quarterback Anyssa Lerma, who was sacked twice and completed 11 of 16 pass attempts for 71 yards.

“Our rushers were a little tired but rotating them in the second game was super important,” Lara said. “The stats didn’t show it as they did (against Millennium) but it was amazing.”

Sunnyside had possession at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second but couldn’t score.

Marana’s first drive of the second half ended with a successful trick play with Ella Joplin throwing a lateral pass to Roxi Singer, who connected with Myers-Rebidas for a 30-yard touchdown pass that put the Tigers ahead 17-0 with 6:43 left in the third quarter.

“It’s really to our advantage that we have a couple of quarterbacks on the team,” Ella said of Singer, who shares time at the quarterback position. “We can run trick plays like that and Roxi has a great arm. And Maggie getting open … there was actually three girls on her but she still caught it.”

A 29-yard field goal by Sharp with 19 seconds left in the third quarter increased the lead to 20-0.

Marana thwarted Sunnyside’s last two possessions in the game with interceptions by Sadie Brown and Myers-Rebidas.

Myers-Rebidas also had an interception Monday night to end Millennium’s possession in overtime.

“It was perfectly fitting that she stopped the game with that pick and the same way with this game today. She’s great,” Lara said. “We have eyes on big plays. We can play with some of the best teams in the state. That’s what we’re here for.”

Ella Joplin completed at least three passes to six different receivers, led by Adrian Griffin’s 11 receptions for 118 yards.

The Tigers ran the ball only three times for a total of 10 yards.

Nami Singer had six catches for 57 yards and Brown finished with four receptions for 34 yards.

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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.

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