TEMPE, Ariz. — In 2022, the Basha Bears celebrated on the field at what is now known as Mountain America Stadium in Tempe after winning Arizona's top prize in high school football, the Open Division state championship.
One year later, the Liberty Lions were the team celebrating in Tempe after winning the Open Division.
Now, in 2024, those two schools will meet to see who will take home the Open Division title.
These two schools came into the 2024 season as two of the favorites to be in this position come the first weekend of December.
Both of these teams responded by putting together one-loss seasons that saw them go undefeated against teams from Arizona.
For Basha (11-1, 4-0 6A Premier region), the season began with three straight wins as the Bears beat Millard South from Nebraska (39-25), Mesa (47-3) and Saguaro (50-0) before their lone loss of the regular season, which came to Mission Viejo from California (31-28).
Since then, Basha has won eight games in a row by defeating Sandra Day O'Connor (58-21), Brophy (35-32), Hamilton (35-20), Chandler (38-27), Casteel (38-7) and then Perry (31-11) to close out the regular season.
In the Open Division playoffs, Basha, the No. 2 seed, has beaten No. 7 Horizon (36-14) and No. 3 ALA-Queen Creek (40-35).
The season has been very similar for Liberty (11-1, 4-0 6A Northeast Valley region). The Lions started the year with three straight wins, which came over Desert Edge (22-0), O'Connor (46-0) and Mountain View (49-20). Both Mountain View (6A) and Desert Edge (5A) will play for state championships next weekend.
The win over Mountain View was followed by a loss to Centennial from Corona, California (63-39), but the Lions haven't lost since. To finish out the regular season, Liberty beat Chandler (45-20), Pinnacle (32-29), Salpointe Catholic (34-24), Saguaro (43-14), Chaparral (63-15) and Centennial (45-17).
In the Open Division playoffs, the Lions, who are the No. 4 seed, have beaten No. 5 Higley (64-26) and No. 8 Hamilton (56-24).
This will be Basha's second appearance ever in a state championship game. Both of those have come in the Open Division title game.
This will be Liberty's fourth appearance in a state championship game. The Lions also played in the Division II title game in 2014 (a 26-14 loss to Centennial), the 6A title game in 2019 (a 34-28 OT win over Red Mountain) and the 2023 Open Division title game (a 33-21 win over Centennial).
The updated Open Division bracket is below.
The Open Division State Championship Game will be played on Saturday, Dec. 7 at Arizona State University's Mountain America Stadium in Tempe.
Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.
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