By Mason Byers
Staff Writer
Despite Williams Field basketball having a young team this year, they have been off to a
hot start to begin the season.
The Williams Field Black Hawks took on the Desert Ridge Jaguars in a crucial 6A Fiesta
conference game. The Black Hawks ended up taking away a 62-51 win over the
Jaguars after they put together multiple runs to run away with the game.
At the beginning of the game junior forward for Williams Field, Markee White Jr., had a
vicious slam dunk to give his team energy. Not too far after freshman for the Black
Hawks, Michael Mcintyre, had a backdoor cut to the basket to get a dunk of his own.
However, the lights-out shooting by Desert Ridge would prove to be trouble for Williams
Field. Senior for the Jaguars Ryan Leggitt hit back-to-back threes to open up the game
for his squad.
This caused Williams Field to only hold a two-point lead after the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Desert Ridge would keep it close and even take their first and
only lead of the game when senior point guard Philip Bowman also nailed two three-
pointers.
Although to round out the first half freshman point guard for Williams Field Adan Diggs
hit a floater and White Jr. had multiple buckets to give them a 29-23 lead.
The head coach for Williams Field, Javon Cole, knew his team had not played their best
half of basketball.
“We just didn’t come with the right intensity in the first half,” Cole said. “Still a lot we can
clean up, and we’re learning.”
Williams Field came out with a lot more pressure and tempo in the third quarter as at
one point they went on a 15-6 run which included White Jr. having a putback dunk.
Again though the Jaguars wouldn’t make it easy for Williams Field as they had another
surge of three-pointers to cut the lead to 14 heading into the fourth and final quarter.
One player who kept the energy up for the Black Hawks in the fourth quarter was Diggs,
who ended the game with 14 points and a block that was sent into the stands which his
teammates seemed to feed off of.
“Coach is always encouraging energy, we’re encouraging energy all around,” Diggs said.
“We’re really good overall.”
The Jaguars didn’t go down without a fight though as Bowman hit four more three-
pointers in the fourth quarter, to give him 21 points on the night, which eventually cut
the lead to eight.
Williams Field was too much though in the end for Desert Ridge as Mcintyre had
multiple clutch rebounds and buckets and Diggs had a transition dunk to put a dagger
into the game.
The Black Hawks continue to keep finding success early into the 2024-2025 season as
they now improve to a perfect 7-0 record before their break. Cole is very impressed with
how his team has responded multiple times already this season.
“We’ve been down in games, we’ve been in close games, for a young group to respond
instead of fighting against each other, staying together in close games,” Cole said. “I’ve
been impressed so far with my group.”
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