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Regular Season Scares

Centennial High School (Peoria, AZ) has had a line of successful football seasons and playoff runs over the last decade. Entering the 2024-25 season, the Coyotes came off an 11-2 run to end the post season, following a loss to the highly talented Liberty Lions in one of the best open-division state matchups of all time. Centennial had a lot of attention over the off-season around their program with a focus on multiple player transfers coming from different schools. Some standout transfers that were deemed to help the Coyote’s offense included two 3-star playmakers, Shamar Berryhill and Nikko Boncore. Both transfers were expected to hold out from playing on Centennial for 5 games per transfer rules. As the regular season started, Centennial showed up as a good 6A team despite not having their eligible transfers to help. Having one of the toughest schedules in Arizona, Centennial ended their regular season with a 3-7 record with 3 of their losses being only 1 score short of a tie or win. Despite the negative record, it can be shown that with the transfers starting to help the team, they can still make some noise entering the playoffs if somehow given the chance. The chances were slim but not too slim considering the numbers they put up against teams like Pinnacle and Queen Creek later in the season. November 9th comes and with an early-morning live stream broadcasting from the AIA, Centennial was pleased to see their team be placed in the 2024 6A Playoff bracket as the 14th seed (2nd from last).

Expectations

Entering the playoffs as the 14th seed meant that Centennial would have to play a talented Red Mountain team (3rd seed), being one of their hardest games yet with the Red Mountain home-advantage. Red Mountain has been favored by many to win the 6A state championship this game (based off polls), so pulling a victory over the 7-3 mountain lions would be one of the biggest upsets in all of the playoffs. Come gameday and Centennial put up 21 points while holding Red Mountain to only 7, resulting in an upset win for the coyotes. Some standout stats coming from that game includes: Boncore scoring a 48-yard touchdown and Berryhill with a 6-yard touchdown. Centennial was far from favorited to win this matchup so including this win to the Coyote’s resume makes the rest of the bracket even the more interesting to come.

A Challenging Path Ahead

Next week, Centennial will face No. 11 Casteel, which defeated No. 6 Highland, 29-27 in round 1 of the 6A playoffs. Casteel has some notable wins over good teams like Perry (OT) and Mesa. Centennial is technically still the underdog in this upcoming matchup according to the seeding but most can see Centennial having the opportunity to dominate in an easier game like this in comparison to last week’s matchup against the mountain lions. If the Coyotes win this game against the Casteel Colts, Centennial will play either Pinnacle (7th seed) or Queen Creek (2nd seed) in the 6A semi-finals. The road ahead will challenge the coyotes especially past Casteel, but if victories are secured up to the championship, Centennial will go down in history books as one of the best 3-7 teams to reach state in 6A ever. From here on out, it is a matter of whether or not they can prepare well enough for this tough teams ahead and if they can utilize their talented roster correctly.

Story: Weston Inners