Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Heather Moore-Martin and Salpointe Catholic's girls volleyball team stayed healthy, won state

The Star sports columnist highlights Salpointe Catholic's impeccable run to a volleyball state championship during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tucson's golf scene on national TV and the latest in college basketball. 

If you’re looking for a feel-good sports story in the thick of a global pandemic, you should talk to Salpointe Catholic High School girls volleyball coach Heather Moore-Martin.

Forget that Moore-Martin has coached the Salpointe girls and Catalina High School’s boys volleyball teams to a combined five state championships in the last 10 years. The real story is that Moore-Martin and the Lancers dodged COVID-19 at every turn and completed the season safe, happy and healthy.

“We started the season in limbo; we didn’t know if we could practice or even if we could play,” Moore-Martin says. “Our schedule was just torn apart. We initially couldn’t play the TUSD schools. It was chaotic for a while.”

In harmony with Salpointe athletic director Phil Gruensfelder, Moore-Martin recreated a schedule that includes non-traditional opponents like Desert Christian, Pusch Ridge Christian, Rio Rico and Chandler Seton Catholic.

Every player on the team was responsible for her travel to and from games. Salpointe did not arrange vans or buses for the volleyball team. Even at the state championship game last week, an upset victory over No. 1 Scottsdale Notre Dame Prep, the Lancers were shuttled to Chandler by a caravan of about 15 cars driven by moms and dads.

“None of the girls on our varsity were infected with COVID-19 all season,” Moore-Martin says. “At one point, a girl on our freshman team got a sore throat and thought she had (COVID-19) so she stayed away for two weeks. As it turned out, she tested negative anyway.”

None of Salpointe’s 20 matches were postponed. What were the odds of that, 100 to 1?

“The girls really persevered,” says Moore-Martin, a Catalina High School grad who played volleyball for Pima County Sports Hall of Famer Mary Hines. “We didn’t take masks off at games or practices the whole year. We played with masks on. Sometimes, especially during long rallies, you could see the players panting but we stuck with the safety rules and went beyond. Over time, we got used to it.”

At the Class 4A state championship match, Moore-Martin looked behind the Salpointe bench and almost did a double-take. The Notre Dame Prep side of the gymnasium was full of students, fans and parents.

“They were shoulder-to-shoulder; I couldn’t believe it or understand it,” says Moore-Martin. “We weren’t used to that. We allowed each player to bring two family members to a game. That’s it. Even at the state championship game, we limited our players to two family members.”

Salpointe won state championships in 2016 and 2017 and finished second in 2018. Last year the Lancers were stunned, eliminated in a first-round playoff match. Moore-Martin says that first-round loss provided motivation for returning to the top this year.

Here’s some perspective on what Moore-Martin has accomplished: No other Tucson girls volleyball team has won a state championship in the last 27 years.

“Honestly, I’m worn out after all we went through,” says Moore-Martin. “My husband (Keith) and I are going on a trip starting Monday, getting in our car and getting away. I think I’ll use that time to reflect on how this all came together — so many people working safely toward our goal — and getting it done.”

Stone Canyon the star of Mickelson’s made-for-TV golf match

The first time golf’s so-called “silly season” used Tucson as a backdrop, the world’s greatest golfers arrived at the tony new Ventana Canyon golf compound for the 1987 Merrill Lynch Shootout.

Except for some comic relief by Fuzzy Zoeller, the game’s most lively personality of the day, it was serious business. Tom Watson, Lanny Wadkins, Ben Crenshaw, Ray Floyd, Payne Stewart and four other big names were playing for a $90,000 first prize from a pool of $250,000. One player was eliminated per hole, which meant that when Watson four-putted the No. 3 hole, he had traveled to Tucson to play three holes.

But Friday in the Phil Mickelson-inspired “The Match: Champions for Change,” Oro Valley’s Stone Canyon Club became eye-candy for TNT’s cameras. The golf competition by Mickelson, Charles Barkley, Steph Curry and Peyton Manning was, shall we say, not much better than a Saturday foursome at a course near you.

The bottom line was wonderful: America’s historically black colleges and universities were recipients of $5.4 million raised at Stone Canyon. It didn’t take long to realize that the only other people getting rich were those at TNT.

In the first six holes of the four-hour telecast, there were commercials for 21 entities, among them AT&T, Progressive Insurance, Taco Bell, Jim Beam, HBO Max, Draft Kings, Ford Mustang, DISH Network, Auto Trader, Capital One, Kia, Big Lots, Aaron Rents and a couple of beer companies.

It’s amazing how big names like Mickelson, Barkley, Manning and Curry have so much appeal with America’s diverse corporate advertisers.

Overall, it was entertaining TV. Shaquille O’Neal sang in an attempt to disrupt a Barkley putt; Mickelson came off as something of a persnickety schoolteacher, coaching Barkley to excess and adding “Zen is not for everybody, but it is for me” while guzzling his eighth cup of coffee.

The stars of the show were the tag-team TV cameramen, who played a game of leap-frog, jumping from one hole to the next, racing in their golf carts to stay ahead of the action, relying on scenic views from cameras attached to drones between commercials for Wheels Up and Geico.

At one point, Mickelson was on camera saying he was so impressed with the Stone Canyon Club that “I bought it.” And indeed, the views of the Tortolita and Catalina mountains were worth untold value to the tourism industry of Southern Arizona.

Let’s hope there is a rematch next November.

Pandemic steers New Mexico State hoops to train in Tucson

College basketball scheduling during the pandemic has become a fluid, unpredictable adventure. On Saturday, for example, New Mexico State’s women’s basketball team played Park University of Phoenix at the LEAD Academy near Palo Verde Road and Interstate 10.

The Aggies have been practicing and lodging in Tucson for more than a week, using the LEAD facilities. They opened their season Wednesday against UTEP in El Paso before returning to Tucson. The NMSU men’s team also has made scheduling changes. The Aggies will play Benedictine University on Tuesday in Mesa at the PHH Facility. Anything goes.

Credit Arizona's invaluable Ryan Reynolds for managing fluid scheduling situation

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Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller awards a gold jersey to the player he judges to be the top performer during each week’s practices. I keep waiting to hear that Ryan Reynolds will get the gold jersey one of these weeks. Reynolds, the veteran UA basketball operations director, is a master schedule-maker, and this year his scheduling chops have been tested like never before. The Wildcats saw NAU, Wyoming, LMU, Gonzaga, Illinois and now UTEP disappear from their 2020-21 schedule. And UTEP was a fill-in. It’s not much different elsewhere in college hoops; No. 1 Gonzaga has been creative, filling in with Tarleton State and Dixie State.

Tucson native Majok Deng earns minutes at Pepperdine

Former Salpointe Catholic High School all-state basketball standout Majok Deng, a redshirt freshman at Pepperdine, was active in the Waves’ first two games last week, playing 11 minutes and scoring two points in games against UC Irvine and UCLA. Deng is ninth in minutes played for Lorenzo Romar’s club.

Remy Martin disappoints against 'Nova, but the ASU is far from overrated

When Arizona State’s preseason All-American point guard Remy Martin was limited to five points in the Sun Devils’ loss to No. 3 Villanova on Thursday, some quickly trotted out the “overrated” card. But based on his body of work in three ASU seasons, Martin is certainly not overrated. By comparison, when Damon Stoudamire was a first-team All-American point guard at Arizona in 1994-95, he was held to five points in a last-second loss at ASU. And in 1998-99, when current UA assistant coach Jason Terry was a first-team All-American point guard, he also was limited to five points in a crushing upset loss at Oregon State, a night Terry also committed a career-high seven turnovers. Terry was so frustrated after that game that as the OSU student section stormed on the court, pushing and shoving the Wildcat players, Terry took a swing at someone. He missed.

Ex-UA coach Sheldon Blockburger moves into personal training

Former UA high jump and long jump coach Sheldon Blockburger, who coached six All-Americans, including NCAA champions Liz Patterson and Brigetta Barrett, has built a training center for high school and post-collegiate athletes in the foothills. It includes a 45-meter sprint straightaway, a high jump pit and a sprinting hill. Blockburger, who left his UA coaching post recently, has also been working with tennis players to help improve their speed and power. Those interested in training at Blockburger’s facility should contact him at sblockbu1@gmail.com.

Nico Mannion signs two-way deal with Warriors

After slipping to the 48th slot in the second round of the NBA Draft, former Arizona point guard Nico Mannion quickly signed a contract with the Golden State Warriors. But it’s not what you might think. The Warriors offered Mannion a two-way deal, which typically means he’ll shuffle between the G League and the NBA, if he merits a promotion. It’s the same kind of contract signed by ex-Wildcats Rawle Alkins, Allonzo Trier and Kadeem Allen. The two-way deal limits a player to a maximum of 50 NBA games.

Mannion could conceivably practice with the Warriors all season as long as he isn’t on the active list for more than 50 games. Perhaps Mannion would benefit just as much from practicing against Steph Curry as playing with the Santa Cruz G League team. Playing time for Steve Kerr’s team could be limited anyway; the Warriors signed Brad Wanamaker to be Curry’s primary backup, and second-year pro Jordan Poole should be in the mix for playing time at the position.

UA women's basketball opener vs. NAU won't be televised

It’s unfortunate that the opening game for Arizona’s seventh-ranked women’s basketball team won’t be televised by the Pac-12 Networks on Sunday. Instead, the ASU-Houston Baptist men’s game is scheduled to be broadcast in that time window. Not only won’t thousands of Adia Barnes’ growing legion of fans not get to watch the opener, they’ll also miss seeing former Pima College two-time first-team NJCAA All-American point guard J.J. Nakai. Now a senior at NAU, Nakai scored 22 points in her Lumberjacks debut on Wednesday against UNLV.

It would’ve been special to watch the two-time ACCAC player of the year go against Arizona All-American point guard Aari McDonald. The Pac-12 Networks have not announced their schedule for Friday’s conference openers, but it seems likely the Arizona-UCLA game will be broadcast live. The Pac-12 Networks lists women’s basketball telecasts scheduled for 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on Friday.

My two cents: Open Division playoffs lessen Salpointe chances of taking home a title

Once Salpointe Catholic High School’s football team became good enough to be considered for the Open Division of the state playoffs, it became something of an impossible dream.

The Lancers, who went 14-0 to win the 2013 Class 4A state title, are now matched against Class 6A Phoenix super-powers, those open-enrollment football factories like Scottsdale Saguaro, Chandler Hamilton, Chandler and Peoria Liberty, among others.

Winning another state championship seems unrealistic; former coach Dennis Bene’s teams of 2017, 2018 and 2019 went a combined 35-4, but unfortunately were bracketed against Scottsdale Saguaro and Chandler and lost in the state playoffs each time.

But last week, sixth-seeded Salpointe Catholic — now coached by Eric Rogers — was awarded a forfeit victory over Saguaro, which was forced out of action by positive COVID-19 tests. That puts Salpointe into Saturday’s semifinals against, gulp, Hamilton, the No. 2 overall seed. The game will be played at Hamilton High School.

And if the Lancers upset Hamilton, they’ll face the winner of the Chandler-Liberty game.

I liked Arizona’s system of determining a state champion before the Open Division was created. Initially, the positive attention Salpointe received by sharing company with the Saguaros and Chandlers was impressive, but the reality is that winning a state championship now appears to be out of reach for any Tucson school deemed worthy of Open Division status.

The 2019 Lancer football team was good enough to win state championships — should have won a state championship — but because of a new process were literally out of their class.

The impact of being in the Open Division will be felt for years. The Lancers will not experience a 25th (or even 50th) year reunion honoring the 4A or 5A state champs. There will be no grand stories to tell through the years, no “I played for a state championship team” and no trophies to hold, no plaques on the wall.

Sometimes bigger isn’t better.