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SPORTS
AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS | MARCH 14, 2018
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Desert Vista High grad leaps into record book for GCU BY ART PREUSS AFN Contributor
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Desert Vista High School graduate stole the show when Grand Canyon University’s men’s and women’s track and field teams recently won their third consecutive Western Athletic Conference team championships. Scott Marshall not only set a new GCU pole-vault record by clearing 5.51 meters (18 feet, 1 inch) on his second attempt at that height, but also entered the school record books with another first. Marshall’s vault tied for ninth overall in the country, which helped him become the school’s first qualifier for the NCAA Division I Indoor Championships – an honor accorded to the nation’s top 16 in the event.
The university just completed a fouryear transition from D-II to a fully accredited Division I program. Marshall was recruited to Wake Forest after finishing high school in 2013 with a No. 4 national ranking. But he decided after one season to return to Phoenix and compete for GCU, where the associate head coach was Todd Lehman, the man who introduced Marshall to the sport 10 years ago. It was back then that Marshall’s older brother Craig took him to a Flagstaff summer camp for pole vaulters run by Lehman. Scott, then in middle school, got hooked on the event. GCU didn’t offer an engineering major, which was his intended major, when Marshall graduated from Desert Vista in 2013, but added it after he left Wake Forest – a big bonus for his
(Photo courtesy of phxfan.org)
Desert Vista High School graduate Scott Marshall turned some heads with his pole vaulting during a recent tournament.
decision to transfer to Grand Canyon. He has worked through a number of injuries to get to where he is. A broken toe in October 2016 kept him on the sidelines for eight weeks, and last summer he suffered a concussion and collapsed lung from an accident. Marshall, 22, has steadily been working at improving his jumps. Last year, as a redshirt junior, he topped out at 5.4
meters to break his own school record. That vault was 13th best in the nation. During his final year at Desert Vista, he won pole vault at the Arizona Meet of Champions and then went on to finish as runner-up at the Junior Olympics. Marshall’s next goal is to hit 5.7 meters, the qualifying height for the Olympics of World Championships. -Read Art Preuss at phxfan.com
Ahwatukee team takes a YMCA league basketball title AFN News Staff
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team made up of Desert Vista High School students just wanted a chance to play where the Phoenix Suns do. But the Heavy Hitters got more than they had ever dreamed of when they took to that court recently and captured the Division II title in the YMCA Competitive team after defeating their counterparts from the West Valley in a nail-biter 48-44. Though the game was played on the practice court of the Suns’ home at Talking Stick Arena, Coach Jerry Ervin said, “it still was a privilege to be able to play there.” And how they got there is a story in itself. The team formed a few months ago after Ervin’s son Elijah and Dean Bittner, the son of Ahwatukee Little League President Dave Bittner, want to play some roundball. So, the boys rounded up a small pack of classmates with the same desire. Most members of the team – made up mostly
(Special to AFN)
The Heavy Hitters include, from left, Coach Jerry Ervin, Jacob Baker, Miles LeBlanc, Dean Bittner, Elijah Ervin, Michael Stecyk (front), Noah Takas, Carlo Jimenez, Brody Mclallen, Braeden Belnap and Coach Dave Bittner.
of sophomores with two freshmen and a junior – play football, run track or play volleyball or baseball for their high school.
“The team was started because Dean Bittner and Elijah Ervin wanted to play basketball in order to keep in shape and have some fun in between their fall and
spring sports seasons,” said the senior Ervin, who coached the team along with Dave Bittner. Both Ervin and Bittner have coached various teams for five years. At one point, the team seemed unstoppable, going 5-0 in the Y Competitive League’s top high school division. They dropped their next three games, Ervin said, but “going into the playoffs, we refocused and fine-tuned our offense and defense.” “For the first game of the playoffs, we, the No. 3 seed squared off against the No. 6 seed,” Ervin said. “Right from the start, we came out aggressive on offense and defense. We ended the first quarter with a 21-0 lead. We kept up the intensity and by the third quarter, our starters were sitting out for the rest of the game. We won the game by a score of 60-43. Then they took on second-seed Mountain View, which had handed the Heavy Hitters their first loss of the See
BASKETBALL on page 46