High School football: 4A playoff berth or not, 2023 a championship run for Amphi Panthers

Amphitheater football is playing the waiting game this week.

The Panthers closed out their high school tackle football regular season on a high note Friday night, defeating Sahuarita 47-0 to finish 7-3 overall and clinch at least a share of the Class 4A Gila Region championship.

But as the Panthers lined up to hug their coaches, there was a feeling of finality — even with the state’s 4A playoffs set to begin Nov. 9.

After playing 10 games, Amphi had a bye this final week of regular-season action. The Panthers are preparing like they can make the state tournament. But whether that’s possible — they have a lot of ground to make up in the 4A rankings to do so — is yet to be seen.

We’re going to meet for film on Monday,” Amphi head coach Jorge Mendivil said Friday night. “Tuesday, we plan on practicing, checking to see where the rankings are and where we’re at. So, at that point, we’re going to figure out what the game plan is for the week.”

After the win over Sahuarita, Amphi remained No. 27 in the rankings. The top 16 teams (with some exceptions, like if a high-ranked team is brought up to the Open division playoff) make the 4A state tournament.

Amphitheater had hoped to schedule No. 17 Peoria (5-4) but instead got No. 52 Phoenix Maryvale, which they beat 49-28. Region foes No. 48 Rincon/University and No. 51 Sahuarita were near the bottom of the rankings, and Maryvale was 52nd out of 53 teams.

“The vibe was ‘hey, we want to practice,’ obviously, but at the same time we asked for Peoria, we get Maryvale and that hurts your rankings right there,” Mendivil said on Monday after their film session. “We didn’t have them anywhere on the spectrum so for us to have to play them and they won two games, so they don’t help us.”

Amphi finished 5-1 in Gila Region play. The Panthers split with the other two one-loss teams in the Gila, Douglas and Empire.

“It’s definitely pretty cool. All my brothers came here. It just feels nice to do something here,” said Amphi sophomore Imanol Silva, a quarterback and free safety, about winning the region.

It’s Amphi’s first region title since 2016. The Panthers are one of the most successful programs in Southern Arizona, having won a state championship in 1975 and 1979 and finishing second in 1990 and 1997 under legendary coach Vern Friedli.

“It’s cool, it hasn’t happened in a while, and I’m glad I can do this for my school, for my team. We all worked together and showed Amphi deserves a chance,” said senior guard/defensive tackle Jaime Charles about the region.

With the other contenders for the region crown (No. 32 Douglas and No. 35 Empire) too low to make the state tournament, it will be the third straight full season the Gila Region misses out on the postseason. Last year, Walden Grove went 8-2 and missed the playoffs, and in 2021, Catalina Foothills was 6-4 and missed the big dance.

Mendivil acknowledged that it’s cliché but said the Panthers’ success was due to their hard work in the offseason.

“We knew that this senior group was pretty special and last year we were in a lot of close ball games, we just didn’t finish and this year we did, for the most part,” Mendivil said.

Against Sahuarita, Silva was 7 for 9 for 226 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions. Four different Panthers had at least 67 yards receiving, led by senior receiver David Silva, who had 74 yards and two touchdowns.

Junior running back Malique Maro ran for 138 yards on eight carries, scoring once.

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“I think about 90% of our plays went for over seven yards, so that’s incredible and our kids, they just did their jobs,” Mendivil said. “Obviously there’s some mess ups and some stuff like that, but at the same time everything’s correctable. We hope to play again, but the rankings are the rankings.”

Four linemen ran the ball for Amphi: Charles, senior tackle Carlos Lopez, senior guard Fausto Sinohui and senior tackle Marco Martinez. Lopez and Sinohui scored touchdowns, and Martinez ran for a first down on 4th-and-2 before Sinohui scored.

“It was cool. Everybody kept their composure even though we knew as a team it was not as good as us, we still played like they were CDO,” Charles said.

Mendivil said the linemen running the ball was a “little pay back” for their senior starters.

“Well if it does finish, I think we did great. Everybody was at practice, we stayed committed the summer before the season, came to practice, worked our butts off and honestly I feel like we worked really hard this season and I feel like we do deserve a shot at playoffs,” Charles said.

Picture this

• A photo gallery of Amphi's matchup at Empire from earlier this season. Empire won, 27-20, but it was one of just three losses the Panthers had all year.

Photos: Empire hangs on to drop visiting Amphi 27-20, high school football