Any 2A Conference girls basketball program assuming the Coronavirus has cancelled Rez ball this postseason hasn’t seen Sedona Red Rock High School’s defense.

Second-year Scorpions head coach Kirk Westervelt, a decade-long practitioner of the Navajo Nation’s notorious full-time, full-court press, unleashed it Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 23 and 24, to capture their third Central Region title in five seasons.

Three days after previously undefeated Valley Lutheran High School had skunked Heritage Academy in Laveen, the Flames received their own double dose of shutout spray in a 47-32 loss in Sedona, then a 45-25 defeat on their home court the next night.

“Defensively, I think we’re one of the quickest teams in the state,” Westervelt said after his third-ranked Scorpions blanked the Flames in the third quarter, building their lead to 40-10 with three minutes to play before he emptied his bench. “We’re not a great team yet, but we’re very good when our defense comes to play, and it travels.”

After also holding Valley Lutheran to a single second-quarter point Feb. 23--barring home losses to lower-ranked previous victims or to a lower seed in the first two rounds of the state tournament--travel, for the undefeated Scorpions, will not be a factor the next two weeks. 

Not that travel has mattered in the first 12 games for Westervelt’s regular seven-player rotation, which has yet to win a game by less than double digits, let alone lose. 

“We played 10 times better than in Sedona,” Westervelt said Feb. 24, when forward Stephanie Medel and guard Nyah Valdez each scored 16 points while also holding Flames leading scorer Naomi Hernandez to one quarter of her 24.8-per-game average. “I didn’t think we’d be this good yet.”

Following two years of second-team all-region notices--then two weeks of quarantine in January due to COVID-19 protocols--Medel “played her best game,” Westervelt added, including lockdown defense on Hernandez, who could only muster 13 combined points in the two games until garbage time the final three minutes Feb. 24. 

But Kirk Westervelt reserved his highest superlative for his daughter, Helen, and his point guard, fellow sophomore Annabelle Cook, saying that the Flames “didn’t have an answer for them.”

Redeeming herself for her performance in two losses to Valley Lutheran as an honorable mention all-state freshman, Helen Westervelt poured in 24 points from the wing in the two wins over the Flames, including four three-pointers.

“It feels awesome, because we lost to them twice last year, and they were close games,” she said. “I knew this year that we had the capabilities to beat them, [so] even though we had a lot of turnovers, I kind of went all-out."

Her father’s focus at halftime of the second game was not to allow Valley Lutheran back into the contest the way the Scorpions did in Sedona, where they enjoyed a 21-6 halftime lead before the Flames came out of the locker room and chipped all but four points away from it with just over three minutes to play.

“With as many turnovers as we had the first half, how ugly it got for a little bit, that really could’ve been a 45-6 thumping,” Flames head coach Edward Measel said. “They gave us a little bit of an opening, and we started to figure it out. Really proud of the girls, the way they pushed back through that.”

But Westervelt hit two free throws to spark an 11-0 run that would finish off the Flames,  at risk of opening the postseason on the road after their second straight loss.

"I feel like we played our butts off," she said. "I mean, we did not want to lose.”

In Phoenix, Sedona Red Rock opened up a 22-2 lead on Valley Lutheran, and built on it. 

Senior guard Bianca Sanabria mustered 11 in her two games, while junior post Grace Rohloff added 13 for Valley Lutheran. 

“Her catching the ball on the wing, making some decisions, getting the ball back, I’ve kind of relied on her this year to do that,” Measel said. “I really feel like Grace has stepped up and taken that role. She’s got another year to really mature that much more, [and] she’s going to be fantastic down low.”