Palo Verde head coach Anthony Smith figured out a unique way to get his program past the lopsided 69-46 loss his Titans suffered to Pusch Ridge in the 3A championship final last year and it started with renaming the team’s group chat to, “All or nothing.” It sounds like that simple change worked with the Titans taking their top seed all the way to the center court after defeating No. 3 Coolidge 52-41 Thursday afternoon at the Madhouse on McDowell to win the first state championship in program history.

“After we lost, I think it was about a day or two later, I started a new group chat, and it was titled All or Nothing,” Smtih said. “Last year we had a trophy in it. It was 2025 was a trophy. This year was All or Nothing with the trophy, so God knows what my group chat is going to be for the next year, but it's going to be something with the trophy, for sure.”

Palo Verde ended the year with a 23-6 record with four of those losses coming to 4A and 5A programs during invitational play earlier in the year and Coolidge finished the season with a 26-8 record under legendary head coach Dave Glasgow. Glasgow led Coolidge to state championships in 1998, 1999 and 2002 to go along with runner-up finishes in 2001 and 2022. He had a 217-89 record in Coolidge from 1993-2004 before moving over to lead Buena for 15 years. He led the Colts to two semifinal finishes at the 5A level before returning to Coolidge in 2020. Glasgow has 711 career victories in 33 years and it feels like he’s just getting started.

The first quarter went pretty even with the Titans building a slim 11-8 lead but that lead grew to 24-14 at the break. Both teams were hampered by turnovers with the Bears collecting 14 in the first half and the Titans had 11. The Bears played a packed in zone on defense, which caused problems for the Titans with “soft” passes in the lane but Coolidge committed several unforced turnovers from trying to force passes up the court.

The third quarter belonged to Coolidge, with the team going on a 10-0 run, fueled by back-to-back three-pointers from Turner Armstrong and Shane Enos. Kristian White put the Titans back up with an old fashioned three with 2:47 left, ending the drought. The Bears were unable to take the lead the rest of the way but Armstrong hit on another deep shot with 22.1 seconds left to cut the lead down to 32-31 but Kamaiu Ortiz hit a bucket as time expired to give Palo Verde a 34-31 lead.

Preston Dees got hot for the Bears, scoring eight of his game-high 21 points in the fourth quarter but his bucket to cut the lead down to 37-35 with 6:18 left in the game was followed by a 9-0 run by the Titans, which put the game out of reach at 46-35 with 1:07 left. The Titans only had three turnovers in the fourth quarter with the team extending each possession to 25-30 seconds to drain the clock. The approach appeared to throw Coolidge off their game and the team was also hampered by only committing two team fouls at that point and Palo Verde went on for the 52-41 victory.

Coolidge. (Andy Morales/AZPresp365)

Rashad Ortiz was named the MVP of the 3A championship game with 19 points, White added 14, Kameron Pippen had eight, as did Kamaiu Ortiz. Ethan Graves added three points for Palo Verde. Dees had his 21 for Coolidge, Armstrong had eight, Enos scored five, Shameer Stump had four and Porter Dees added three. Preston Dees also had 11 rebounds. Pippen had eight assists and Turner collected seven.

Pippen and Graves are seniors for Palo Verde and Preston Dees is a senior for Coolidge.