Brophy Prep basketball pivots after Southwest flight canceled, finds new tourney and wins

Phoenix Brophy Prep basketball coach Matt Hooten woke up to a text message Monday morning from a player's parent.

They were scheduled for an early Southwest Airlines flight that had been canceled. It was a heads up, because Brophy was to be at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport that day to get to Oregon to play in the Les Schwab Invitational in Portland. The parent let Hooten know that the lines stretched outside the terminal of people trying to reschedule flights.

Hooten said there were no issues with his flight when he checked. But after getting an update for their 3:05 p.m. flight, he saw it was delayed 45 minutes. That kept getting pushed back. By 11 a.m., the flight was pushed back well past 6 p.m.

"I said, 'Hold tight, we'll communicate,'" Hooten said he told the families. "I went to the airport at 11:30. I parked my car in the short-term parking garage, left all my baggage there, and went into the terminal and got in the line with Southwest ticketing.

"About an hour later, an announcement came on the loudspeaker that 95% of Southwest flights were canceled out of Phoenix, and if you didn't have an active boarding pass, your flight was likely canceled, and couldn't get you out of Phoenix until after the New Year."

Related: Holiday flight disruptions the latest embarrassment for Southwest Airlines

Brophy administrators were already at work talking to Southwest booking to see about getting a later flight. They exhausted all other airlines for group booking to no avail. A day after Christmas, it was too short notice. Brophy Athletic Director Josh Garcia checked with tournaments in Los Angeles and San Diego but they were full.

Desperate to do something for the kids, Hooten contacted Pinnacle coach Charlie Wilde, knowing he and his team were in Palm Springs for the Desert Holiday Classic. Wilde set Hooten up with the main contact. Hooten got a phone call at 8 a.m., Tuesday from the tournament organizer, letting him know there was an opening because a team from Canada had flight issues.

Families and players were on standby. Brophy gassed up the two buses and was off by 11:30 a.m., to slot in where the Canadian team would have played at 3:30, against San Pedro from the L.A. area.

Because of the time zone, Brophy gained an hour and made it within 15 minutes to the gym. They had seven minutes to warm up.

"It was kind of a community effort in pulling it all together," Hooten said. "We pulled up to Palm Springs High School and threw our uniforms on. Didn't know anything about the team we were about to play. On the drive out, the kids were in the back of the bus trying to YouTube the team to get some clips. I asked them what kind of defense they were running. After a half an hour, they realized they were watching their JV team. We couldn't find any film on them."

Hooten pulled them to a side room, and said, "I know it's been an up-and-down 24 hours, and you were looking forward to the trip to Oregon."

"We tell them all the time to control what you can control. Obviously, we couldn't control the flights. I said, 'Look, we need to go out and play hard, play together and have fun.' "

Only able to find two basketballs to shoot in the last seven minutes before tipoff, Brophy Prep proceeded to play its best game of the season, blowing out San Pedro 71-53, as Conner Ivy (20 points), Arman Madi (18), Braeden Speed (11) and Luke Rehl (11) all scored in double figures.

"So much support," Hooten said. "I got several text messages from Arizona high school basketball coaches, saying, 'We're sorry to hear the news about your flight.' We felt a lot of support from the Arizona coaching community. Ultimately, that helped us to be here."

Hooten said Brophy will be able to get refunded for the flights, rental car and hotel bookings in Oregon.

Les Schwab was able to find a replacement for Brophy, a team from San Francisco, who had a similar experience as Brophy getting to Palm Springs, showing up just before their game.

To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert atrichard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on Twitter@azc_obert

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Brophy basketball finds new tourney after Southwest cancels flight