Catalina Foothills Wins First Boys Basketball State Title

TUCSON, AZ — The Catalina Foothills Falcons' road to a state championship on the hardwood was anything but simple.

The Falcons, who beat Glendale's Centennial High School 66-54, to capture the school's first boys basketball championship on Saturday night, began their march toward immortality in October.

That's when the team battled through an outbreak of COVID-19 cases after playing in an off-season tournament in California.

The cases wound up being a minor hurdle for the team, according to senior center Will Menaugh, though the experience was enough to dial the team in that much more, ahead of the start of the regular season.

"It just set this tone for the rest of the season, like this could go away at any point," Menaugh says. "And because it was our senior year, that was a big concern for a lot of us. We only had one junior on the team, so everyone was worried about it being canceled.

"So I think it really let us play to the best of our ability in a lot of games, because we were like, 'Oh, this could be our last game. We got to leave it all out there just in case it is.'"

For longtime CFHS head coach Doug D'Amore, Saturday's one-sided championship victory was the net result of the team's countless hours of sweat and guile put in at practices and games over the past four years.

"It was always our goal. Obviously we all set those goals, but this was a true, I think, reality for this team," D'Amore says. "And as we developed through the years, we just kept getting closer and closer, a couple semi-finals, last second games that we lost.

"And I feel like the experience that we've had through the years would put us in a position this year."

That experience was on display during the Falcons' four-game playoff run, in which they beat Tempe McClintock, Surprise Willow Canyon, Glendale Ironwood and Centennial — all by double digits.

In total, the Falcons finished the 2020-21 season with a 19-1 record, with their lone loss coming to 4A conference power, St. Mary's, on Feb. 20.

That 48-46 loss to the Knights, who would go on to win the 4A title, wound up being a turning point for D'Amore's team.

"I think what that game really showed us is that you can be in control the entire game, but then if you take your foot off the pedal for just one second, then you can still lose the game," Menaugh says of the team's lone loss of the year.

"It was a great experience for us about halfway through the season. It was our first really hard team we played. But then it was also a great learning experience, because we knew what we could do better and we knew how we could win that game the next time we played."

Family business

D'Amore discussed the meaning of the game of basketball to him and his family, given the impact that his late father, Doug Sr., had on the hardwood courts of Southern Arizona.

D'Amore's father, who died of a heart attack at the age of 66 in 2017, was a monumental figure in the greater Tucson region's basketball scene.

His son expressed a tinge of regret that the man lovingly referred to as 'Big Doug' couldn't be in the stands on Saturday night.

He knows that his late father would have been proud of the way the Falcons fought through double teams and traps, en route to a state title.

More importantly, D'Amore knows that his father would be proud of the dedication that he's put into his craft.

"If he was here, he would say the same thing that I do. We have zero desire to put our name on anything," D'Amore says. "It's an absolute just joy and appreciation to just be able to coach kids and try to get them to be better men, better understanding of relationships and hard work and dedication.

"All those kinds of cliches, but they're cliches because they're true. We use the sport of basketball to teach our players life experiences. And I think that's one thing he kind of passed on to me and a lot of other players and coaches that he was around."

Representing Tucson

Another aspect of Saturday's championship performance for Menaugh and D'Amore was the ability to represent all of Southern Arizona on the sport's biggest stage.

That's because the Falcons were the only team to win a state basketball title from the greater Tucson region in 2021.

Menaugh said the team definitely felt an extra jolt of motivation on Saturday, knowing that their peers in the southern portion of the state were behind them in their championship quest.

"I love to represent Tucson like that and then I'm sure all my teammates do as well," Menaugh says. "We were keeping up with the other games going on that day, the other state championship games.

"And we were bummed when we saw some of the other boys and girls Tucson teams getting knocked out, but we're super happy to be able to be the Tucson team that went and won all of state against the big Phoenix teams that are there every year."

Above all, Menaugh said he and the team's senior-heavy roster were thrilled to get D'Amore his first state championship victory.

"Doug is such a great coach. He's been in my corner since day one, since I came into the program and I appreciate him so much for it," Menaugh says. "He's a good leader. He's just a great coach overall. So it means a lot that we can go out our last year with him and then winning the state title, which he's never done before, even though he's had a lot of success in our program.

"So he was just as happy as we were and we were super happy for him."