The Salpointe Catholic basketball teams of the mid ’90s were loaded with college-type talent: Brian Smith would play at New Mexico, Will Porter would play at Stephen F. Austin, Fern Tonella would play at Davidson, and Brian Stewart would play at Washington State.
But what stands out now is that two of the ex-Lancers went on to play for Final Four championship teams: John Ash at Arizona in 1997 and 2001, and Ed Tonella at UConn in 1999.
What are the odds of that?
From left Quynn Tebbs, John Ash and Josh Pastner keep a close eye on the action in the Wildcats' win over Kansas in 1997.
On Saturday, Ash and Tonella will be cheering for their alma maters at another Final Four.
Ash and Tonella live and work in Tucson and are buddies who get together when possible. You can imagine they aren't shy to wear their national championship rings. Ash is an executive of the CBRE real estate investment firm in Tucson. Tonella is a financial auditor and data officer for the international firm Axway.
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Salpointe alum Ed Tonella was a part of UConn's 1999 NCAA championship team.
Ash scored 32 points (he started one game) for Arizona from 1997-2001, redshirting in 1998. Against all odds, Tonella made UConn's 1999 championship team after a campus-wide tryout. He scored four points in nine games. Can you imagine the stories they could tell?
Tonella attended the UA as a freshman but transferred to UConn a year later when his mother, Maria Tonella, accepted a position on the UConn faculty as a professor of nutrition and lifestyle geonomics. After 25 years, she returned to Tucson and is now working as a professor on the Arizona faculty.
Ed's brother, Fern, an all-state guard on Salpointe's 1997 state finalist team, also played in the NCAA Tournament for Davidson's 2002 team, which lost to Ohio State in the first round. Tonella started that game. He now lives in Hong Kong and operates a 60-person staff as a financial investor official.
2001 Final Four coverage 'the best gig in Tucson journalism'
