Six Falcons fly away with accolades

After being voted 3A North Offensive Player of the Year, junior Jazlyn Nosie was crowned the best player in the state as the 3A Player of the Year. She was joined on the 3A All-State First Team by senior Jenieth Sanchez. Senior Jaylyn Nashio was honorable mention all-state.

Sanchez was voted to the All-3A North Region First Team. Nashio made second team all-region.

Seniors Davilynn Brown, Cori Cosay and Shyann Massey were honorable mention all-region.

Alchesay finished third in the 3A North standings and second in the region tournament. But the Falcons put it all together in the state tournament to claim a third state crown in four seasons on the court. Alchesay also won the 2019 2A state title. The Falcons didn’t play in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nosie used a variety of shots to lead the Falcons in scoring.

“She’s a special player and will do the same thing next year,” said Alchesay coach Rick Sanchez. “She understands the game. She has really good drive. When she gets in a rhythm, she has a couple of moves nobody seems to figure out. She can pass like nobody’s business, can knock down the three and has that 6-8 foot runner where she comes up and stops and pops and sends up a floater that drops in. She stops and puts up that floater and gets the defender on their heels and there’s nothing they can do — they got beat.”

Nosie led the Falcons in scoring and assists, averaging “about” 17 points per game and roughly 4.5 assists a night.

Sanchez, who joined her as a co-captain, was right with her, giving Alchesay a formidable one-two scoring punch. She averaged “about” 14 points and four assists a game. The guard led the Falcons in steals and blocked shots.

Like Nosie, Sanchez was a team leader.

“If I needed to talk to the girls, I would text Jenieth and she would forward the text and saved me from having to deal with everybody,” Rick Sanchez said. “She helped me a lot by keeping the girls informed. Everything went through Jenieth.”

Sanchez is one of the school’s top students. “I believe she or Cori will be valedictorian,” said the coach.

But it’s her play on the court that got her noticed in the all-state and all-region voting and played a huge role in getting the Falcons back-to-back state crowns.

“She just will not quit,” her coach said. “She’s one of the best defensive players in the state. She’s an amazing young lady.”

Shooting guard Nashio, a senior, gave the Falcons another strong offensive threat.

“She has eyes that see the whole court,” her coach said of Nashio. “She can pass the ball on a dime and you get change. And she’s got a great shot when she plants her feet. When she’s on, she’s on, and it’s nothing but net. She has a good drive but it’s her passing and ability to see the court and get it to the open person that always blew me away.”

Brown, who they call “Boo,” led the team in rebounding. Junior Kamryn Nachu started at center and Brown rotated in there with valuable minutes off the bench. “Boo was a presence on the inside,” Sanchez said. “She was able to hit the inside shot, block out and rebound and put the offensive rebound back up and dish it out to girls to hit the three.”

Massey “is only like 5-2 but she’s a quick little guard who started because of her quickness and hard defense,” coach Sanchez said. “She could just shoot the lights out and rebound like crazy.”

Sanchez considers Cosay, a senior, the team’s most improved player. “She just played hard and would just lift the team up,” the coach said. “She was kind of like the sixth man. She was contributing so much that she was playing at the end of games because of flat-out hustle. She can rebound and put up a shot.”

Like Nachu, senior Andrea Suttle also was part of the nine-player main rotation who could have earned accolades based on her play on the court.