Higley Football wins back-to-back 5A state championships in dramatic fashion

Video by Jordan Spurgeon

No. 1 Higley against No. 2 Desert Edge for the 5A title had everything.

Ejections. Big hits. A major comeback. Pivotal calls. Clutch performances. An insane finish.

Eddy Zubey’s guys delivered on the biggest stage once again, winning Higley’s second 5A championship in a row.

“I’m definitely drained,” Zubey said. “I still have energy right now but I’m super excited for the guys.”

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🏆@HIGLEYFOOTBALL WINS BACK-TO-BACK 5A STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS🏆@Sports360AZ pic.twitter.com/Vlamp8DL2a

— Eliav Gabay (@eliavgabay) December 2, 2023

Senior RB Daxen Hall put up a monstrous 313 total yard, two touchdown performance while Sophomore QB Gunner Fagrell put up 365 passing yards as well as a pair of touchdowns.

“I can’t do anything without my team,” Hall said. “I didn’t care about the stats… luckily, we just came out with the win. I’m just glad I could contribute to my team.”

Let’s fast forward to the second quarter, where the Knights had a 22-7 lead.

After a blindside hit near the Higley sideline – a near brawl broke out that involved several players from both teams.

Following about 15 minutes of the officials discussing among themselves, they came to the conclusion that because many of Desert Edge’s players left their sideline and entered the field, they’d be hit with 16 ejections to Higley’s three.

“I’m gonna go back and watch,” Desert Edge co-head coach Mark Carter said. “I know it ain’t gonna do nothing, but I’m gonna send it in, because they gotta live with that…because it happened on their sideline, less of their players came out, but what my issue is, is they’re calling out kids who were already on the field for the punt…they played the rest of the game full strength, and we’re playing with our JV defense.”

“It’s sad,” Zubey said. “It’s just such mayhem. You don’t know what to go on. The original list of numbers that we were given – it got changed a couple times…it stinks. That’s not what we want to do in a championship football game.”

The third quarter looked like what you’d think – starters vs backups, and the Knights went up 42-13.

Then, Hezekiah Millender (384 total yards, two touchdowns) happened.

He used his feet when needed, stayed calm despite palpable pressure from the Higley defensive line, and directed traffic like an elite quarterback should.

Thanks to him, star DE Deshawn Warner playing basically every position, and an insane kick return for a touchdown by Kezion Dia-Johnson (who also finished with 211 receiving yards), the Scorpions climbed back from down four scores to make it 42-35.

“We didn’t make first downs to continue the clock going and stuff like that on the offensive side of the ball,” Zubey said. “On the defensive side of the ball, they did a really good job of choosing plays to get to where they needed to get to… played a lot of empty formations, spread us out, made us play in a lot of coverage.”

Millender struck again, this time with a rushing touchdown to set up a 2-point conversion:

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Saw too many instances this season where refs made games about themselves.

AIA needs to make changes. https://t.co/OpLI792KjI

— Jordan Spurgeon (@spurge_) December 2, 2023

Deshawn Warner almost gave us the cherry on top of one of the most insane comebacks in Arizona high school football history.

https://twitter.com/JUSTCHILLY/status/1730851010103665145

“That what we talk about,” Carter said. “Our core values is love, gratitude, appreciation, resiliency, and sacrifice. Every single pillar was on display tonight, so when people look at Desert Edge…they better know, we coming.”

While Higley already led 22-7 at the time of the ejections, there will always be that “what if?” those 19 players weren’t ejected… but life’s not about the “what if’s” – it’s about the final scoreboard.

And the scoreboard showed Higley winning the 5A title, 42-41.