Emily Carman is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Casteel High School for AZPreps365.com

Casteel utilized a high-pressure defense to build an early lead en route to a 61-30 victory over Kellis on Tuesday.

The Colts (7-5) took the lead within the first minute of the game and never relinquished it, holding Kellis (0-12) to only two points in the first quarter.

Casteel led 20-8 at halftime.

The most impressive plays of the evening were defensive stops by the Colts. 

One such play occurred at the beginning of the third quarter when junior Carson Ledbetter dove to the ground and wrestled for a ball that was mishandled by the Cougars. 

Similar dives and steals from the Colts defense occurred throughout the evening 

“Our coaches really push us towards defense, and especially at practice yesterday, and it obviously showed,” Ledbetter said. “We had ways we were supposed to guard their best scorers and they didn’t really score a lot so it worked out.” 

The defensive performance was by far the best aspect of the game, according to Casteel coach Aaron Windler.   

“Our team defense was great, but I don’t think our team offense was very good,” Windler said. “We didn’t shoot the ball very well tonight. Typically we do that very well.

"We missed a lot of perimeter shots and a lot of the bunnies we had, we missed those as well,” Windler said. “Everybody was trying to get theirs and was not necessarily playing as much team basketball offensively.” 

The Colts had some small scoring droughts with the longest coming at the end of the third quarter when they did not score for four minutes.

They picked up the pace in the fourth, however, and put up 18 points in their highest scoring quarter.

Ledbetter led all scorers with 19 points.

Some admirable performances came from Kellis players, who never gave up or slowed down despite the score. 

The Cougars scored half of their points in the fourth quarter thanks to four 3-pointers by senior Damien Salaiz and sophomore Seth Adams.  

Sophomore Awan Kueth was the player of the night for Kellis, according to coach DeRahn Stinson.

“He had like eight or nine rebounds. He played really well,” Stinson said. “He was the bright spot of the night.” 

Kellis was at an offensive disadvantage due to the absence of their captain, sophomore Chris Ruiz, who sustained a head injury last week and is under concussion protocol. 

“Obviously he’s our leading scorer and he’s our emotional leader and he’s our leader period,” Stinson said. “Not having him on the floor really hurts us.” 

Stinson expects Ruiz will return for the Cougars' next game at Agua Fria (2-5) on Tuesday.  

The Colts will play at Desert Mountain (8-3) at 7 p.m. Thursday in what is expected to be a competitive match, according to Windler.

“Defensively, we’ll have to be as good as we were tonight and offensively we need to be as good as we were on Saturday against Horizon,” he said. “If we do those things then we’ll have a good chance.”