With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Snowflake High School is already feeling the love.

Not to be outdone by their football state champions from two months ago, the Lobos’ girls basketball team opened AZPreps.com’s 3A Conference rankings Thursday, Feb. 11, as top dogs, defeating No. 9 Show Low High School.

“We had very high expectations,” third-year head coach Joe Clare said. “We like No. 1, but what matters is who is no. 1 at the end of the season.”

That is what marks the difference thus far between football and basketball in Snowflake: while the Lobos leveraged a lone, mid-season loss at Round Valley High School as a springboard to their seventh state football title, both basketball teams passed the halfway point of their East Region schedule with the conference’s top record at 9-0.

“Well, I thought we would be better than people expected but I didn't think about being 9 - 0,” said boys head coach Andy Wood, whose team opened its rankings behind only Valley Christian in the hunt for his second state title, first one in seven seasons. “After the Covid cancellation, we were just really happy to be playing basketball, and I think that's helped the guys not take anything for granted.”

Like the girls, the second-ranked Lobo boys are 6-0 in their region after sweeping Show Low, 74-51, Feb. 11, defeating the Cougars for the second time in their shortened winter schedules.

The challenge going forward for Wood, reigning North Central Region Coach of the Year, is making his team realize that No. 2 isn’t good enough. What makes his offense go is senior point guard Michael Brimhall, who scored the number on his jersey--25, a season high--to lead Snowflake to a 79-70 home win Feb. 9 over Winslow.

However, the unique, unteachable advantage the Lobos’ front line enjoys over most of its Northern Arizona opponents is size. Six-and-a-half-foot tall junior Mckay Wood is the post threat who allows Brimhall to work his way through defenses for close shots.

But it is athletic 6-foot, 4-inch power forward Stewart West who can not only gobble up rebounds but can rattle the rim in close on slam dunks, like he did twice in the first half Feb. 11 in the 23-point blowout of Show Low. 

West led the Lobos in scoring that night with 28 after being the Lobos’ second-leading scorer against Winslow with 14. He also can attract personal fouls, fouling out two minutes into the fourth quarter against the Bulldogs. 

Fellow senior Conner Hall used his 6-foot, 3-inch frame at off guard and wing forward to score 12 on undersized but senior-laden Winslow, playing without last year's region player of the year on defense, senior post Dustin Richard, in its only loss to date.

“We like our size and depth,” Wood said. “Our depth has really been key to our success. Different guy every night.”

Although neither Wood nor Clare would ever admit to looking ahead, they have already put two games’ worth of distance between their nearest East rivals with just four region games to play.

Their most imminent challenge, then, comes not from second-place chasers Winslow or Holbrook, but in Page on Saturday, Feb. 13. It is there and then, beginning at 3 p.m., that the Lobos face the Sand Devils in the closest thing to Rez ball either team is likely to see in 2021.

This Freedom game will test the Lobos’ undefeated records, as the 10th-ranked Page boys are 4-2 but the No. 4 girls are undefeated through their first six contests.

Snowflake senior point guard Trystan Hancock puts up a runner in the lane during the season opener for the top-ranked Lobos, a 62-15 win over Chino Valley High School. (Photo courtesy Joe Clare)

“They man you up in a man press 90 percent of the game,” Clare said. “I think I still have a good enough team to get that win; I think we have the team speed.”

But although Clare’s stingy Snowflake defenders allowed just 15 points from Chino Valley High School in their Jan. 19 season opener, the perennial Page press has held its previous five opponents to an average of 15.5 points.

Only the Lobos’ previous opponent--and Page’s opening opponent--eighth-ranked Winslow, could muster more offense against the Sand Devils. And the Bulldogs’ 41 points Jan. 19 were just as much as they would score in a 17-point loss Tuesday, Feb. 9, at Snowflake.

Clare’s girls, if they are to maintain their top ranking and hand Page its first loss, will need to do so without the services of their star player, Emily Davis. The five-foot, nine-inch junior forward, whose efforts have not gone unnoticed here, is three-quarters of the Lobos’ scoring and rebounding to date and also leads the team in blocked shots. 

She did not return to the game against Show Low, however, after spraining her right ankle and limping off the floor less than a minute into the Feb. 11 contest.

“It’s obviously going to be different, and we’re going to gameplan a little differently with Emily out,” Clare said. “It’s just a matter of whether our girls show up or not.”

Minus Davis, the Lobos were clearly a different team, ultimately having to come from behind on their home floor. Junior guard Nicole Roten’s three-pointer with less than two minutes to play in the third quarter gave Show Low the 32-30 lead.

A backdoor assist to forward Macee LeSueur quickly tied the score back up, and another weak side assist from guard Austin Stratton, this time with three seconds to play to fellow junior Kamri Ballard, got the Lobos the lead back by the end of the period.

However, the next Snowflake points did not come until halfway through the fourth quarter on a Trysten Hancock free throw. It would be up to Ballard, who had 10 second-half points, and the Snowflake defense to put Show Low away, as Clare went with a small lineup in the final period.

The Cougars would pull within two again, 37-35, with two-and-a-half minutes to play on a layup by junior post Kyra Brogan. It would be their final points of the contest, however, as Ballard’s two key low-post buckets came on the heels of a jumper by LeSueur, coming out of bad shots forced by the Snowflake defense.

“It was awesome,” Clare said. “I think for a while they were really concerned, but at the end, the girls stepped up.”