Basha gave Hamilton everything it had during a high-stakes high school football game in Arizona on Friday night. However, the Huskies were bailed out by a controversial roughing the punter penalty.
The momentum of the game would’ve flipped the other way if the flag was not thrown.
Instead, the top-ranked high school football team in the Copper State lost its first game of the season. All of the momentum was sucked out of the building because of the questionable call.
Arizona high school football runs through Chandler.
Hamilton High School and Basha High School are both located in Chandler, Arizona— approximately 20 miles northwest of Phoenix. The former enrolls approximately 3,675 students in grades 9-12. The latter enrolls somewhere around 3,000.
They are separated by only seven and a half miles.
Not only are these two schools rivals by proximity, their football teams are both really good on the 6A level.
The Bears of Basha won their first seven games by a combined score of 294-67. The Huskies of Hamilton won their first seven games by a combined score of 402-104.
Hamilton was ranked as the No. 2 team in Arizona and No. 54 team in the country coming into the weekend. Basha was ranked as the No. 1 team in Arizona and a top-20 team in the country.
Those standings are likely to flip after Friday night.
The Bears lost their first game of the season by 16 points. The Huskies stayed undefeated.
A roughing the punter controversy helped the victors.
Basha trailed Hamilton by only nine points with just under ten minutes left in the third quarter. The Bears forced the Huskies to punt on 4th-and-3 from their own 40ish-yard-line, which put the punter at the 25.
He ultimately kicked the ball around the 6-yard-line after a high snap went sailing over his head.
Although Hamilton’s punter got the ball off, Basha absolutely crushed him as he did. It was a wobbler.
The poor punt would’ve given the Bears possession just beyond midfield. They would’ve had tremendous field position with a chance to cut the game to a field goal or less. Their sideline was hype. The home crowd went wild.
And then the flag was thrown for roughing the punter…
The Huskies received a fresh set of downs. They went on to win 28-12.
This roughing the punter call might be the worst call of all time pic.twitter.com/kvxIiizq3w
— ArizonaVarsity.com 🔥PREPS🔥 (@AZHSFB) October 25, 2025
The roughing the passer penalty sucked the life out of the stadium. It felt like a huge turning point in the game.
But was it the correct call? It begs the question of: when does a punter stop being a punter?
Here’s a better look at the play:
I got the perfect angle. Is this roughing to punter??? https://t.co/3FlCrP2oRF pic.twitter.com/bxKZbyIOa1
— Colin Hogan (@_colinhogan) October 25, 2025
On one side of the conversation, the defender tried to blow up a broken play. He closed on the punter as quickly as possible to create a turnover after a blown snap. It was a live ball.
On the other side of the conversation, the punter picked up the ball, immediately reset and tried to punt the ball away. He made no attempt to run the ball, which likely gives him the same protection of any other punter. Especially because the defender did not try to block the punt. He took a free shot at the punter.
Right or wrong, the penalty proved to be a huge moment in the high-stakes high school football game.