Sahuaro might have a future basketball shaped star in junior Ramiro Valencia. Ramiro has attended Sahuaro all three years of high school. Despite only being a sophomore, last season he was the starting shooting guard for our JV basketball team. He’s played for Sahuaro every year since his freshman year. As a 5’9 sophomore, he averaged 22.3 points per game.

“My first sport was soccer and I played that until I was ten then I switched to hooping at age 11,” he recalled. He was pretty good at soccer. He wanted to try something new though, so he made the switch to basketball.

Ramiro thinks there is quite a difference when playing competitively and playing for fun. “Well in a competitive game you have to focus more on taking care of the ball and scoring on every possession, so you can’t really disrespect people the way you could in a pick up game. Since there are referees the setting changes a lot.” He believes in games that are just for fun and to allow people to not only enjoy the game, but play stress free.

His most memorable moment in a game as he puts it when he, “broke somebody’s ankles,” in a game against Palo Verde his sophomore year.

He emphasized that he,”Really can’t wait to get back on the court.”