Peoria High School Captures the State Championship

Lawrence Pierce (#20) gets the block while Stephan Hadley(#50),
Sam Engler (#42), and Goch Ajak (#24) assist him.

One year ago, the Peoria High School Boys' Basketball Team walked off the court of Jobing.com Arena (Glendale, Arizona) crushed. Losing to Saguaro by three in the semi-finals on the road to the state championship, players on Peoria knew they did not finish the season the way they wanted. So during the off-season, members of the Peoria team trained hard and entered the 2011-2012 season with one goal in mind and that was to finish the season. On February 25th, 2012 Peoria High School finished off a long whirlwind season by capturing the Division II Boys' Basketball State Championship. The 2011-2012 Peoria Boys' Basketball roster had a total of six Team M'Phasis players (DeWayne Russell, Lawrence Pierce, Stephan Hadley, Jose Bustamante, Sam Engler, and Goch Ajak) and one coach (William Roberts).

William Roberts and DeWayne Russell after the final buzzer went off.

The Panthers ended the season with the record of 28-3 and ranked number 3 in the state of Arizona. Many Articles were written on the day the boys won the state championship which can be viewed at the following links: Max Preps andYourWestValley. Also, Richard Smith from West Valley Preps wrote this amazing article on the journey of Dewayne Russell and William Roberts: Russell, Roberts end 7-year journey by realizing dream. The boys most definitely FINISHED the season they way they wanted to!