The Tanque Verde girls captured the championship of the Boyd Baker Small School championship on Wednesday night with a 53-20 win over Sahuarita at The Gregory School. It is believed to be the first championship of any kind for the girls’ basketball program at the school founded in 2005.

Tanque Verde (4-1) freshman Emma Morris led the way with 27 points. Morris is averaging 18 points a game for the Hawks and has already hit 21 3-pointers through her first five games in her high school career.

“I’ve been looking forward to this since I was in seventh grade,” Morris said. “We played together in summer and fall league so we know each other and we play well together. We are all unselfish and we look out for each other.”

Fellow freshman Ella Berg scored 12 points in the win, which is also her average for the year. Senior Ava Rauschen also scored 12 points. Rauschen and Bridget Spooner are the senior leaders and the duo is averaging seven rebounds a game each.

Sahuarita (3-2) came out of the Immaculate Heart bracket and pulled off a 34-33 upset over The Gregory School in the semifinal round earlier in the day despite 21 points from senior standout Taylor Thompson.

The Hawks led 21-9 at the half and never looked back. Meghan Simmons scored seven points to lead Sahuarita and Anabelle Durazo added six.

The Gregory School defeated Tanque Verde 57-55 in pool play. The two teams will meet again in January.

On the boy’s side, The Gregory School defeated St. Augustine 83-66 behind 40 points from senior standout Nick Rosquist. Rosquist is on target to be only the fifth boy from Southern Arizona to break 2,000 points in a career:

Southern Arizona Career Scoring Leaders
1 Terrell Stoglin, Santa Rita (2,901) 2009-13
2 Chuck Overton, Cholla (2,535) 1989-92
3 Deron Johnson, Sunnyside (2,108) 1984-89
4 Jermaine Watts, Sunnyside (2,055) 1990-94
5 Tim Derksen, Amphitheater (1,979) 2008-12

The Hawks (5-0) are averaging 82 points a game so far with Rosquist pumping in almost half of that.

“It’s been a really good year so far,” Rosquist said. “We are a high-scoring team this year and we are pressuring the ball almost the whole game.”

Like all athletes, Rosquist is looking for a state championship to end his career on a high note.

“It’s all I care about,” he added. We fell short last year but I think we can do it.”

Junior Addison Mort added 18 points in the win over St. Augustine (4-1).

The Wolves were down 40-24 with 4:13 left in the first half but pulled to within 44-36 at the half and to within 44-42 two minutes into the second half but the team couldn’t maintain the scoring run and the Hawks started to pull away again.

Max Fimbres led St. Augustine with 17 points, Andrew Reyna added 15 and Chance Strawderman scored 13. Only a junior, Reyna is on pace to break 1,000 career points this year.