ALA-Queen Creek ready for Saguaro in brutal welcome to 6A

ALA-Queen Creek saw their schedule come in backwards this spring. The section games in their new 6A East Valley home trickled in first. Then came the September portion of the schedule, all the way back to their Week 2 game against Anthem Boulder Creek. All that remained was Week 1.

“And all of a sudden, we're sitting there and we see Saguaro typed in there,” coach Ty Detmer remembers. “And it's like, ‘All right, here we go.’”

Quite the welcome to 6A.

“We're a young team so you were kinda hoping you might get a little more favorable matchup for some of the new guys and let them get their feet wet,” Detmer said. “No better way to get your feet wet than facing one of the top teams in the state. There was excitement, too. It's a big game and a great opportunity right out of the gate with everybody healthy to try to take them on.”

This is the product of relentless winning. As recently as 2019, ALA-Queen Creek was in 3A. But they went 13-1 that year, winning their second title in four years and earning a move to 4A. That didn’t last long. Two years and 17 wins later, the Patriots were on the move again, finding a home in 5A. Last year, they went 9-2, reached the Open Division for the second straight time and nearly knocked off eventual champion Chandler Basha.

So now, here they are, a 1,105-enrollment school playing against the biggest, best teams in the state, starting Friday when they host the Sabercats, which made it to the Open championship game last year but lost to Basha.

In an ideal world, Detmer says, this would never have happened. He didn’t even think the Patriots belonged in the Open Division the past two years. But now, ALA-Queen Creek is playing the card it was dealt. The only way to go back down to 5A, after all, is losing.

“Might as well embrace it, accept it and get ready to go,” Detmer said.

Adding to ALA-Queen Creek’s challenge this year is the task of replacing 19 starters. In each of the past two years, the Patriots have been blessed with a dominant quarterback. Logan Hubler passed for 2,762 yards and 36 touchdowns in 2021 before Drew Cowart took the reins last year and passed for 2,446 and 35.

Typically, those departures would lead to a more run-heavy attack, but Enoch Watson — a BYU commit — is moving south from Flagstaff Coconino and should bring stability under center. He will also benefit from the return of senior Jayden Williams, who fell 10 yards short of leading ALA-Queen Creek in receiving last year.

The bigger question, in Detmer’s mind, is how a new-look offensive line will fare.

“We've got some guys that will have to learn on the fly,” Detmer said. “And we've got some kids that got a little bit of time last year. Most of it was mop up. So we've got some young guys that are ready to get their opportunity. They've kinda been waiting for that. So we feel like we've got a good group coming up but obviously, they've gotta learn and learn real quick.”

One of the main challenges of playing in 6A is not just the top-end opponents, but the week-to-week grind bereft of weeks where teams like ALA-Queen Creek can take their foot off the gas. Detmer expects his team to be more prepared for that next year, when their senior class could be more than 40 kids. This year might be trickier.

And having your first game in a new conference be against a perennial Open Division school doesn’t make things any easier, although Saguaro is entering the season under a new head coach in Zak Hill and a new starting quarterback in Mason Bray.

More: Mason Bray's patience pays off in emerging as Saguaro's starting quarterback

The flip side is that, if ALA- Queen Creek returns to the Open itself, they’ll be ready for the challenge.

“The biggest thing is just being able to survive those tough, hard-nosed football games week-in and week-out with not a ton of depth and guys having to play a full game, every snap where you don't have a lot of subs sitting there waiting to go in behind somebody,” Detmer said. “But it definitely prepares you to, if you do get there again, you've been battle tested all year long.”

In that sense, there’s no better way to start the next three months than with a showdown against Saguaro.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ALA-Queen Creek ready for Saguaro in brutal welcome to 6A