THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Basha High School Athletics

With the theme from "Rocky" playing over the PA system at Sun Devil Stadium, one last play left to pull out another miracle, Devon Dampier's pass fell incomplete in the end zone and Chandler Basha celebrated the Open Division state football championship. As Dampier bent to his knees at the Basha 20, the Bears (12-1) captured the school's first state title with a 28-21 victory in the last game of the Arizona high school football season in 2022. Going from 4-7 in 2019 in his first season at the helm, to getting to the state final for the first time in school history, Basha went from doormat to champions under coach Chris McDonald. "I had a vision of how I wanted to run a program," McDonald said. "We live in an age where it's all about self-gratification. It's about attention. But at the end of the day, it's all about relationships. Those kids know I love them. And they want to be valued and they want to be part of a program where they're valued other than on the football field. "We're very engaged with our kids. I can't say enough about them. They'll run through a wall when they know you care about them." Senior running back Deshaun Buchanan, who felt the heartbreak of losing an Open championship game to Chandler two years ago when he was at Hamilton, likes to call himself "the closer." He looked like he was all that when he took off on an 83-yard run, then capped it with a 3-yard score that gave Basha a 28-14 lead with 10:20 left. It was his third touchdown of the game. His second came early in the second quarter for a 14-7 lead, after junior Demond Williams Jr., fired a bullet deep that Bryson Dedmon caught in stride for 46 yards to the 1. It was reminiscent of the passing play the two hooked up for late to beat Chandler 14-7 during the regular season. "The community came out and supported us all playoffs, so I felt we had to bring one (a gold ball) back to them," said Buchanan, an Idaho commit, who ran for 199 yards on 24 carries. Buchanan then made some big runs down the stretch, along with clutch plays by Williams, after Dampier had scored on a sweep from the 7 to cut the score to 28-21 with 7:41 to play. Buchanan had runs of 3, 5, 6 and 6 with Williams running for 4 and 2 yards and hitting Javery Marberry for 2 and 9 yards to eat clock and keep Dampier off the field as long as possible.

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Basha High School Athletics

BASHA WINS OPEN DIVISION TITLE

RICHARD OBERT

AZCentral | 12/15/2022