On Saturday, February 22, 2025, the Sierra Vista High Varsity Men’s Basketball team conquered the state championship court once again. After coming off of a fresh win against Clark High School in the state semifinals, the Sierra Vista Mountain Lions arrived at the UNLV Thomas and Mack Center hungry to defend their 2024 State Champion title against Spanish Springs. In the last stretch, the Lions defeated Spanish Springs, with a final score of 79-65, sealing the Mountain Lions’ second consecutive NIAA 4A State Champion title.
Sierra Vista’s head coach and athletic director, Joseph Bedowitz, states that managing the heightened expectations with defending their 2024 title “was definitely a different mentality. We had to be ready every night! No matter who we played, they wanted to knock off the champ!” Varsity basketball player, Colton Knoll adds, “The main hardship we addressed during the season was losing a few of our players. However, we made sure to stick together as a team and not let anyone or anything from the outside get to us.”
Knoll describes the experience as a back-to-back state champion as “an amazing feeling,” and Coach Bedowitz continues, “The hard work that the boys put in throughout the last two years has paid off. They deserve every bit of accolades for accomplishing this feat.”
In the Lions’ victorious 2024 state championship, the men’s basketball coaches wore all black. This became a superstition carried into the 2025 season and for “any big game, whether it was for a league championship, a rivalry game, or a state championship,” Coach Bedowitz expresses. “The coaches always wore all black.”
Moving forward, the Sierra Vista Men’s Basketball program will be moving up from the 4A division to the 5A division. Coach Bedowitz states that even with stronger competition, “We will continue to work hard and have high expectations.”
