Aidan Richmond is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Scottsdale Preparatory Academy for AZPreps365.com 

A one-point loss and an upset win made for a dramatic senior night at Scottsdale Prep, but neither program could get too caught up in their emotions with their biggest tests still ahead. 

Both the boys and girls basketball teams played tough defensive battles against Glendale Prep’s teams with play-in hopes on the line. 

The girls program competed first, where with 0.2 seconds remaining, the Spartans, down one, were unable to create a shot in time. Despite the loss, they will still compete in the 2A Conference play-in as the No. 21 seed, where they will go on the road to face the 12th-seeded Arizona Lutheran on Tuesday.  

These two teams met in the regular season on Jan. 6, where the Coyotes pulled off the win 31-15. In the loss, Scottsdale Prep and Arizona Lutheran were tied at halftime but the Spartans fell apart in the second half, only scoring five points while giving up 21. 

“At this point, we all gotta refocus on what we’re going to do for these playoffs,” coach Teray Allen-Lisbon said after the loss to Glendale Prep. 

The Spartans emphasized their need to fix the issues they struggled with in their senior night loss. 

“I think we can work on slowing down our game and our pace,” junior Orchide Nguyen said about what they need to focus on going forward, a sentiment shared by her teammate, senior Abigail Benham. 

“As a team we were just moving the ball way too fast and just hesitating,” Benham said.

The senior guard suffered a knee injury in the Jan. 28 game against Sedona Red Rock but emphasized her desire to continue to contribute through the injury. 

“I decided no matter what I’m playing the rest of my senior year, I’m not gonna watch my teammates from the bench, I need to be there. I have to give it my all, no matter if I’m hurt or if I’m ok,” she said. 

The Spartan girls will be looking forward to having a healthy team going into the postseason after losing many of their key players earlier in the season, requiring the team to bring junior varsity players to their roster according to senior Shreya Akula.  

“It’s really nice to have everyone back,” Akula said. 

After the girls' loss, the Spartan boys faced a major challenge in the then 11th-ranked Griffins, a team that even the seniors of Scottsdale Prep had yet to beat in their time with the school, senior Omar Amireh said. 

The Spartan boys pushed through a noisy crowd and aggressive Griffin defense to pull off a win against a team that was undefeated in regional play. 

Coach Jeff Slump attributed the win to their defense, something he wants to see out of his team going into their upcoming play-in game on Wednesday. 

“I think our kids have the belief that regardless who we have to line up against, as long as our defense is there we got a shot,” Slump said, a sentiment shared by his players. 

“We got some stops on defense and that carried us. When we’re doing well on defense it carries over to offense” junior Tyler Johnson said. 

Slump’s team will go into the play-in game as the No. 22 seed, something that may have seemed unlikely before they won seven straight games to end the season to finish with a 10-2 regional record, placing them second in the 2A Central Region and securing their play-in spot. 

The Spartan boys will take a long road trip to face off against the 11th-seeded Morenci Wildcats that went 5-5 in the 2A East region, which has four teams in the play-in games and features the third-ranked Pima.

Both teams dealt with a constant noise from both Scottsdale Prep’s students and the traveling fans of Glendale Prep, something they should expect to see in both of their play-in games.

Amireh said that the crowd noise both made things both easier and harder on them, admitting he took an ill-advised 3-pointer in the game as a result of the energy from the student section. 

“The crowd makes you think you’re an NBA player,” Amireh said.  

The story was no different for the girls team, describing how the loud Glendale Prep fans made their free throws harder, something that was balanced out by the loud support of their own home crowd. 

Akula described how they prepare for the crowd noise, saying “We always prepare, when we take our free throws with the coaches yelling, buzzers going off, to simulate that game setting.” 

Both of Scottsdale Prep’s teams hope to use this postseason as an opportunity to end their seniors’ season on as positive a note as possible. 

“I love these guys, I’ve played with them for three years, I love playing for them, I’m sad that it’s coming to an end,” Johnson said.