Kings take next step in historic run

The Kofa boys basketball team began the season with a new head coach, some raw talent and a couple transfers trying to find their way in the program.

A few months later, the Kings are the biggest surprise in the state.

Kofa ventures into uncharted territory for any Yuma school when it tips off against Tucson-Ironwood Ridge today at 7 p.m. in the 5A Division II state semifinals at Jobing.com Arena in Glendale. The Kings are the first team out of Yuma to ever reach the Final Four in basketball.

"I thought right after the Carl Hayden game (in the quarterfinals) they were going to be pretty excited, celebrating a lot, but they realized that we have another game," Kofa coach Kevin Williamson said. "That right there showed the growth that this team made.

"At the beginning, the city championship was all they cared about. I put in the mind-set that they need to think farther than just city. Somewhere in there they got the hint that we can do something at the state level."

Other than seniors Ryan Kinnell and Chase Fitschen, who have played varsity since they were sophomores, the Kings were pretty much an unknown commodity coming into this season.

Junior transfer point guard Kevin Folsom matured as a playmaker in his first year at the varsity level, sophomore Simon Corea has emerged as a role player, Kinnell blossomed into a double-double guy every night and Fitschen has provided some postseason heroics.

Senior swingman Anthony Faidley joined the team as a transfer from Marana-Mountain View only three weeks before the season began and ended up the team MVP.

This season has been one milestone after another for Kofa. The Kings reached the 20-win plateau, won the Southwest Rotary Classic, celebrated a region championship, and then sent shockwaves throughout the state with a monumental upset of No. 2 Phoenix-Pinnacle on the road in the first round.

"No one's ever heard of any good basketball teams out of Yuma," Faidley said. "It takes more than one person to make this happen. We're meshing really well, and hopefully we can go farther."

For Williamson, this much success wasn't supposed to happen this quickly. It's his first season as a varsity head coach.

"I had no thought in my mind that we would get this far starting off," he said. "I though that after we won the Southwest Rotary tournament that if we got the right seeding, maybe we could get one game at state. I didn't think that we'd end up in the Final Four."

No. 3 Ironwood Ridge finished with the best overall record in the state, and is a versatile but physically imposing team, with a 6-11 center, a 6-8 wing player, a couple athletic 6-4 shooting guards and a pair of speedy point guards.

"There have been taller teams, but there hasn't been a team that I've ever seen have as much height with as much talent that can go as many different positions as they do," Williamson said. "But we've seen some weaknesses that we think we can get into and make it a game."

Along with Pinnacle, Ironwood Ridge was widely considered a favorite to win the state championship. On the other side of the bracket, No. 1 Phoenix- North takes on No. 13 Marcos de Niza in the other semifinal.

"We have to take on all the top seeds in the tournament to be able to win it," Williamson said. "It's been long, and an underdog story for sure. I just hope we have enough left with all the traveling we've gone through to get at least one more and bring home some hardware for Yuma."