Lisa Bernstein

Softball in Tucson was so ridiculously good in the 1990s — “it was the golden age,’’ says former Flowing Wells High School state championship coach Armando Quiroz — that Tucson teams won nine state championships and finished second 10 times.
“There was so much talent in Tucson it was so hard just to get out of the local playoffs, a dogfight game after game,’’ remembers Quiroz. “When the playoffs began, I would think ‘here they come.’ Hopefully, they thought the same about us.’’
After Quiroz’s Caballeros won the 1999 state championship in Class 4A, they were elevated to 5A for the 2000 season. Remarkably, they were even better.
Flowing Wells went 30-5 and now, 23 years later, Quiroz says “I should be criticized for losing five games with that team. There was no reason to lose a single game.’’
Quiroz’s Cabs also won a state title in 2002, and he was hired to be the head coach at Eastern New Mexico University, followed by 11 uber-successful seasons as Pima College’s head coach, in which he won 501 games.
He retired in June 2018 but modestly takes little credit for Flowing Wells’ epic 2000 state championship in which it beat 34-1 and No. 1-ranked Glendale Deer Valley in the semifinals.
His lineup included future All-Big 12 Baylor pitcher/first baseman Ashley Monceaux; future Arizona Wildcat infielder Rebekah Quiroz, his daughter; future Arizona catcher Candace Abrams; future Oklahoma State third baseman Stephanie Nicholson; future ASU infielder Blair Holck; and all-city players Stephanie Gonzales, Bobbie Bell, Becky Linhart, and Laughlin Hoskinson.
Monceaux was a franchise player, recruited first by Mike Candrea at Arizona before transferring to Baylor where she excelled under Quiroz’s Flowing Wells mentor, Bears assistant coach Mark Lumley.
“Ashley was only a sophomore in 2000 but she was dominant, as good as you could hope to get,’’ says Quiroz. “She threw 68 mph with a rise ball you could not hit. I felt and still do that we had the best infield in the state, but you wouldn’t know it because Ashley would strike out 14 or 15 every game; the other team rarely put the ball in play. It was a dream season. We were stacked.’’
Prep softball in Tucson in the ’90s was so good that Salpointe Catholic, CDO, Sahuaro, Sabino, and Pueblo won state titles. Desert View, Santa Rita, and Tucson all finished No. 2. But Flowing Wells began the new decade, in 2000, by extending the excellence, becoming the first Arizona softball team ever to win a state championship a year after being bumped up a classification.