Jared Cohen
Above is the TENTATIVE 2014 football schedule for the schools of the Chandler School District.
Basha begins the Gerald Todd era as their head coach on the road against the Desert Vista Thunder. They will be on the road a lot to begin the season as that is the case for four of their first five games. One of those is slated to be a televised game on Cox 7 against Westview, a game in which Bears will look to get redemption from after falling to them last season. They return dynamic wide receiver Doc O’Connor on offense and lockdown defensive back Austin Williams on defense. Both of which received their first scholarship offers at the next level during spring evaluation period.
Chandler has big expectations in 2014 and that all starts just like it did last season with a matchup against Centennial. That will be one of four road games out of six contests to begin the season. One of those road games will be out of state as they will travel up north to play Valor Christian. A week later they come back to town to face Mountain Pointe on the road. The Wolves also lose a great senior class but bring back a great core, lead by quarterback and ASU commit, Bryce Perkins. Junior Chase Lucas and senior transfer N’Keal Harry will be big threats on offense and watch out for Mason Moran from the safety spot once again on defense. Moran is also the back-up quarterback.
The state-runner up Hamilton is the only team to play during “zero week” and they will be traveling to Sandra Day O’Connor to begin their season. For the second straight year they will take on Liberty High School from Nevada but this time will host them in Chandler. In consecutive weeks, they have their state championship rematch against Mountain Pointe and take on Arizona Avenue rival Chandler, both at home. The Huskies lose a great senior class from 2013 as well but bring back two dynamic defensive lineman in Caleb Peart and Garrett Rand and on offense, we will get our first look at 6-7 quarterback James Sosinski who backed up Sam Sasso last season.
Finally, Perry looks to strike early in 2014 with three home games out of four starting with Tucson Sunnyside to begin the season. But the road games come about in four of the last six games of the season including Mountain Ridge, Basha and Hamilton away from Perry. The Pumas dealt with the injury bug in 2013 but this year will be returning a healthy quarterback in Austin Nightingale who got off to a great start last season but missed most of the season because of injury. Also returning is Perry’s Mr. Do it all, Alec Monte, who was named the All-CUSD two-way player of the year in 2013.
