2024-25 Boys Basketball

No. 1 Sahuaro falls short against No. 8 Dysart in 4A quarterfinal game

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Sahuaro playmaker Cisco Llamas, one of the most dynamic players to come through Southern Arizona, provided one last dramatic play out of many by stepping in front of an inbound pass from El Mirage Dysart with 3.2 seconds left and the Cougars down by a point.

Llamas immediately turned his body toward the basket after the steal and released a jumper near the 3-point line.

The shot fell short, off the front of the rim, and the buzzer sounded thereafter with No. 8 Dysart the winner, 55-54, over top-seeded Sahuaro in the 4A quarterfinal at Dick McConnell Gym.

“We had that one read pretty perfect and had a shot at the buzzer to win it and it just didn’t go in,” Sahuaro coach Jim Henry said. “They battled. Dysart just made more plays down the stretch than we did. We made a few too many mistakes down there and probably lost four minutes of the game and it definitely cost us.”

When Llamas made a 3-pointer with 5:01 left, Sahuaro led 47-40.

In less than 2 minutes, Dysart led 49-47.

Santiago Leyva, who controlled the paint for most of the game, got one of many offensive rebounds and scored while being fouled. He made the free throw.

Sahuaro couldn’t convert on the other end and Ashton Havvard made a 3-pointer.

After another failed Cougar possession, Leyva drilled a 3-pointer and the Demons led 49-47 with 3:30 left.

“For us, it was just a matter of keeping our composure, keep trying to attack the rim, and the boys were able to do that,” Dysart coach Keegan Cook said.

Leyva, a 6-foot-5 junior center, finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds. He had 11 points in the pivotal fourth quarter.

“He played tremendous,” Cook said. “He really stepped up to the task. Their big (Sahuaro 6-7 post player Jamal Ali) is a really good player. (Leyva) had his hands full all night with him. Offensively, he was asked to do a lot, too, and he was able to get to the rim a little bit, knocked down some free throws at the end.”

A putback by Leyva and then a jumper by Lamar Anderson capped Dysart’s 13-2 run that put the Demons ahead 53-49 with 1:54 left.

Jamal McCraney made a strong move to the basket to cut the lead to 53-51 with 1:31 remaining.

Sahuaro (22-5) couldn’t score in its next two possessions and Leyva made one of two free throws on two different occasions to put Dysart up 55-51 with 8.1 seconds left.

Llamas, who finished with 27 points, made a 3-pointer with 3.2 seconds left and Sahuaro immediately called timeout.

Leyva could not inbound the ball, so he called timeout. He again failed to find an open man and passed the ball that Llamas swiped before the last-second shot that fell off the mark.

“It was back and forth the whole game,” said Llamas, who at 1,435 points has an opportunity to reach 2,000 points in his career next season as a senior.

“We could’ve executed our plays more, defended well. Rebounding was our biggest deal. We should’ve boxed out more. They had a lot of second-chance points.”

Llamas has shown maturity since his freshman season. He’s advanced enough to realize that next season starts now with workouts and honing his skills.

“All of us, we’re all fueled up and next year we’re going to come back, I’ll promise you that,” he said.

Although Henry said losing McCraney, a senior captain, will be difficult, he looks forward to building next season’s team around Llamas as a senior leader.

“Cisco’s a character guy; he’s a class act,” said Henry, a McConnell protégé. “He’s got the right mentality

“For the younger guys, we’ve got to start planning for next year. I told the guys, the freshmen, sophomores and juniors that next season starts tomorrow. How hard you’re going to work and how bad you want it will determine whether or not we have an opportunity like this again next year.”

Henry, who completed his 15th season at Sahuaro, has never endured a losing season in his tenure. He can reach 300 career wins next season. His record is 287-124.

Last year’s championship appearance against Glendale Deer Valley was his first in a title game. That occurred after the Cougars defeated Dysart at Sahuaro in a quarterfinal game.

In the 2022-23 season, Dysart defeated the Cougars at Sahuaro in another 4A quarterfinal game.

Three straight years, three quarterfinal matchups at Sahuaro between the Cougars and Demons. The teams also met in the early rounds of the playoffs at Dysart in 2018-19 and 2019-20 with the Demons prevailing both times.

“Coming down here all three years, I felt like we were very even,” Cook said. “He (Henry) runs a great program, and we’re lucky enough to be able to come out of it with a win two times down here.

“I thought it was a great matchup coming in here. I knew going into it, it was going to be a battle. That guards that they have, man, defensively, they’re really tough. They really get after it.”

Henry’s summer will include hosting a summer league in June. The league is one of the many elements that help Sahuaro be a model program in Southern Arizona and the state.

Never having a losing season in a 15-year span is incredible. Greatness becomes an expectation.

“We’re in a good place right now,” Henry said. “We’ve got a lot of hard-work and character guys. That’s what leads to success when you have guys who are willing to come in and put in that hard work all the time.

“That’s what we’ve got right now. We’ve got guys who look to the seniors and they see how hard they work. It sort of inspires the younger guys to come in and put in that work, too. They feed off each other and pass that torch from one year to the next.”

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The son of former Arizona standout Marte Alexander, who played during the Joan Bonvicini era, is a member of Dysart’s team. Anthony Martinelli played Friday night just a few miles from where his mom starred at McKale Center as a teammate with Adia Barnes from 1994-98.

Alexander and her family live in Italy, where she played professionally and gained citizenship. Martinelli, a 6-foot-3 forward, is playing at Dysart for a season before returning to Italy next year to complete his high school eligibility.

He is living in Phoenix with one of Alexander’s former classmates at Arizona.

“It’s a great experience,” Martinelli said of playing for Dysart this season. “I always wanted to live here in the U.S. and my goal is to be a professional basketball player here. It’s a whole different lifestyle, but I got used to it. I got my teammates. I got my fans. They helped me through a lot of things. This experience, you don’t have it in Italy, so I’m blessed.”

Arizona’s 1997-98 Sweet 16 team that included Marte Alexander (42) and Adia Barnes (30) (Arizona Athletics)

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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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