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Best in the West 2023: Open Division Championship Spotlight

Devon Henry

Open Division Championship: #3 Centennial vs. #1 Liberty

For the first time in Arizona High School history, the battle of the best derives from the west side.

For the past many years, something different has been in the water in the city of Peoria. Separated by only seven miles, the Liberty Lions and Centennial Coyotes have reached the pinnacle of Arizona High School Football and have a shot a glory.

Both teams are making their first appearance in the Open Division Championship Game. Not only is this a rematch of the 2014 Division II State Championship, but a rematch of the season finale just a month ago. Liberty seemed to handily win that matchup at home en route to a 36-17 win. These two teams have left no doubt this season as the hands-down best teams in State 48 with a combined record of 22-0 against other Arizona teams, including wins against the goliaths of Arizona, such as Chandler, Basha, and Saguaro, who are the only Open Division Champions in Arizona.

After a scare against Hamilton in the first round of the Open Division Playoffs, Liberty ended the game on a 14-0 run to down the Huskies, 39-27. The Lions kept that momentum flowing as they blew the doors off of the back-to-back reigning 6A Conference Champion Highland Hawks, 54-12. Hamilton’s 27 points are the most points that the ruthless Liberty defense has allowed to an in-state team this year.

Not only has senior, Keaton Stam, relentlessly continued his malicious defense with a team-leading 97 tackles, but leaders such as Zane Tallman and Hudson Dunn made a massive impact on games this year. Tallman is a senior who has patiently waited his time behind a talented Lion defense the past few years and showed off his ferociousness in the Open Semifinal alone by causing a fumble, recovering a different fumble, and blocking a punt. Dunn is a fellow OLB and stunned offenses to open this season as a sophomore and has ceased to slow down. The s’more has an astonishing 14.5 sacks in 2023 while also causing a pair of fumbles.

And the impact of Nevada transfer, Jon Wilson, can’t be understated. The senior is a physical running back and more than capable of making chunk plays alongside his stout offensive line. While Wilson has five games of over 100 rushing yards, he could easily have 11 games of over 100 yards from his intensity and tenacity. Seldom does Wilson need to play four quarters or even a full offensive drive for the Lion offense to dominate but with 1,167 rush yards, 15 rush TDs, and the ability to be used in the passing game, if he is in need, Jon Wilson has the ability to change the game.

The defending Arizona Cardinals and Gatorade Arizona Player of the Year looks like the best player in the state of Arizona once again. Now, senior quarterback, Navi Bruzon, looks to cap off his career with an Open Championship. In this game, he battles the team that he had his first massive play against when he threw a game-winning two-point conversion as a freshman against Centennial in the first round of the Open Division in 2020. Head Coach, Collin Thomas, says Bruzon is better when the lights turn on, on Friday Nights. Bruzon was nearly perfect in Liberty’s rout of Highland, completing 17 of his 20 passes for 238 yards and two TDs alongside his three rushing touchdowns. The senior has surpassed 3,000 passing yards this season with 30 touchdown passes and eight interceptions alongside his 862 rushing yards and 20 rush TDs.

In November’s matchup against Centennial, Bruzon led Liberty to hand Centennial their lone loss this season with 139 rushing yards while throwing three touchdowns. The first goal for a talented Centennial defense is to diminish the 510 total yards of offense that Bruzon accumulated in the last game. Centennial has held six teams this season out of the endzone and are a better team since they last saw Liberty with a beatdown of Desert Mountain and bare-knuckle brawl against defending Open Division Champion, Basha.

Washington commit, Noah Carter, as well as Kenneth Worthy highlight not just the defense but also the offense and have helped lead CeHS in marque victories this year. Carter has been explosive on defense when needed with 11 sacks. Worthy has earned three interceptions and two fumble recoveries. Fellow senior, Iverson Small, played an insane game against Liberty in November with 20 total tackles, nine of which were on his own, and continues to lead the team with a whopping 108 total tackles. And don’t take your eyes off of senior, Marcus Logan, who has snagged seven interceptions in 2023.

But regardless of how talented a defense is, an offense like Liberty will inevitably find the endzone. The Coyotes have to find a way to go blow-for-blow on offense. Quarterback, Kainan Manna, has been a star sophomore this season. Manna is coming off of a brilliant game against Basha where he completed 13 of his 19 passes for 238 yards and four touchdown passes. The senior has an insane quarterback rating of 142.3, has only thrown one interception in 151 pass attempts, and averages 21.1 yards per completion.

The run game for Centennial was running on all cylinders as junior, Levi Johnson racked up 117 rush yards while Worthy put his electric athleticism on display against Basha with a 91-yard touchdown run for the first score of the ballgame. Manna also threw two touchdowns to senior, Hayden Allen, his first two TDs of the season. Meanwhile, Carter and Worthy are still lethal in the passing game with 13 combined receiving scores and over 1,300 yards.

Many different players can get involved on offense and head coach, Richard Taylor knows how to utilize them. The Coyotes’ only head coach since the program’s inception in 1992 is nearing 300 victories as the Coyotes’s leader. If you add in his earlier head coaching wins from out of state, Taylor has surpassed, Larry Fetkenhier, Vern Friedli, and Jim Rattay this year to climb to 335 career wins as a head coach. According to the AIA’s football records, a win in the Open Division Championship would tie him with coaching legend, Paul Moro with the second most wins by anyone to coach in Arizona, placing him just 13 wins behind the all-time leader, Mike Morgan.

Centennial owns the series record at 7-6 and it’s always impossible to know what will happen on the field between these two Peoria schools. Only three West Valley teams have ever won a championship at the top tier of Arizona High School Football: Trevor Browne (1981 AAA), Moon Valley (1982 AAA), and Centennial (2015 DI). Saturday night will mark the fourth west side team to cement their name as the best of the best in the history books.

This marks the fifth West Valley vs. West Valley football state championship game in Arizona history. It started in 1987 with a Peoria win over Cactus. In 2007, Centennial defeated Westview. 2014 brought the first championship battle between Centennial and Liberty. And 2020 saw Sunrise Mountain defeat Ironwood.

Liberty is in search of the program’s second state title after winning the 6A crown in 2019. Centennial is vying for its eighth state title which would tie the school for the sixth most state championships in Arizona.

The Open Division Championship kicks off at 5:10 p.m. at Mountain America Stadium at Arizona State University on Saturday, Dec. 2.

Related posts:

Best in the West: Quarterfinals Tournament Preview

Best in the West: Week 2 Preview 2019

AIA Realignment Renews West Side Rivalries

Best in the West 2023: Semifinals & 3A Championship Previews

Arizona native, Devon Henry, joined the Sports360AZ crew in 2018 after graduating from Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. Devon has avidly partaken in coverage of the Arizona high school sports scene since 2013 and has covered NASCAR and INDYCAR at Phoenix Raceway since 2017. Devon is also a play-by-play announcer, calling over a dozen different sports and hundreds of events.

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