Your account does not include highlighter on images.
Searches Highlighted on Image
| March 17, 2011 Navajo Times |  |
|
©
Navajo Times. All rights reserved. Upgrade to access Premium Tools
PAGE 18 (18 of 36 available) PREVIOUS NEXT Jumbo Image Save To Scrapbook Set Notifiers PDF JPG
March 17, 2011 |
|
|
Website © 2025. All content copyrighted. Copyright Information Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Request Content Removal | About / FAQ | Get Acrobat Reader 
|
PAGE B-6 THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2011
N.M. airls Class 3A state tournament
Inside play leadsto Lady Braves victory
BY QI.NTIN JODIE
NAVAJO TIMES
• was to go inside. Normally we run
an outside-inside game, but today
we had to be inside-out."
Lee, who transferred to SFIS at
the beginning of the school year
from Newcomb, was asked about
what it was like playing for a state
championship team.
"It's a really great feeling," Lee
said. "I mean I never made it this
far and last year we played against
Santa Fe Indian School and back
then we didn't care much. But this
year I was scared, I didn't know
what to do becauseI choked there
ALBUQUERQUE- From where
Cindy Roybal stood, her Santa Fe
Indian School girls' basketball
team was at'the top of the Class 3A
hierarchy.
Heading into the tournament,
Roybal believed her team could
beat anyone by 20 or more points.
"After we played, the big
guns, like Cibola, Eldorado, Sue
Cleveland and Valencia, I told the
girls we needed to be 20 points
in the first half.
"But I am really happy to
experience this feeling," she said.
On the defensive side, Lee and the
other two big posts created havoc
for Shiprock as the Chieftains had
a hard time getting inside.
"We wanted to get the ball into
better than anybody else," Roybal
said. "Every Class 3A school we
played at one point we beat them
by 20 or more points."
On March 11, the Shiprock Lady
Chieftains were the latest victims
as SFIS successfully defended their
state crown with a 43-22 win in
front of a near-capacity crowd at the low post and get our inside
The Pit. shooting, but we weren't able to do
that," Shiprock coach Brady Rivers
said. "Santa Fe Indian did a great
job of sinking in and not allowing
us to go into the paint."
Still, the Chieftains were able to
keep the game within reach as they
only trailed 7-4 at the end of the
first quarter when Summer Tallbull
and Samantha Peters both got a pair
of inside baskets to drop.
In the second, Nelson and Coriz
Shiprock's Haley Taliman (32) looks to shoot as Santa Fe Indian
combined for six points as the School's Makayela Holiday defends March 11 at the UNM Pit in
Braves settled for a 15-10 halftime Albuquerque during the Class 3A state championship game. Santa
lead as Shiprock stuck with its 1-3- Fe Indian School defeated Shiprock, 43-22. (Special to the Times -
Donovan Quintero)
The Lady Braves got 13 points
from senior point guard Jenine
Coriz, but it was the inside game of
SFIS that set the two teams apart.
The top-ranked Braves also had
Danielle Nelson in double figures
with 10 points while Bridget Lee
and Makayela Holiday added eight
and four markers, respectively.
"I can't say enough about Bridget,
Dani and Makayela because they
really stepped it up," Royb'al said
of her three sophomore posts. "We
knew what we had to do and that
1 defense.
"Nobody has thrown a 1-3-1 on
us before," Roybal said. "And when
I showed them how to break it, the
Chieftains fooled me because they
came out with a man in the second
half and we just made monkeys out
of them, literally. They had no clue
we were wide open."
Those wide-open shots quickly
put SFIS in control as they opened
up a 22-10 lead after Coriz nailed
1-of-2 free throws to cap a 7-0 run.
A basket by Holiday with 2:24
left made it a 28-14 ballgame
before Shiprock's Leayah Benally
cut the margin down to a dozen
heading into the fourth quarter.
"We weren't planning on playing
man, but we got behind and we
had to make some adjustments,"
Brady said. "And because of that's
what hurt us and Santa Fe Indian
did a good job of being discipline
of running their things even in our
zone and they were able ,to pick us
apart."
Unfortunately for the Chieftains,
their luck didn't change much
as Santa Fe all but coasted from
there as Nelson and Coriz had 10
of the Braves' 15 points in the final
quarter.
"It was still only five-point game
at halftime, but I think it was the
third quarter that got away from
us," Brady said. "It looked like
we had very little urgency and
because of that they got ahead and
we couldn't comeback."
Despite coming up on the short
end, the Shiprock coach had many
positives things to say about the
season as his Chieftains had gone
unnoticed as a No. 6 seed.
"I told the girls I am really proud
ofthem," Rivers said. "We were
No. 6 coming in and the coaches'
polls had us at No. 9 the last four,
five weeks of the season. The girls
did a good job of adjusting to the
slow and fast-pace style of playing.
"This year it was a lot more
enjoyable because people didn't
expect us to be here," he added.
"We would have liked to win a
state championship, but next to that
there is nothing better to sit back
and think back where we started
when we got blasted by Gallup to
the end of the season playing for a
state championship."
The Chieftains will lose four
players to graduation including
Ashley John, Haley Taliman,
Benally and Tallbull. And though
Shiprock returns a good core,
Brady said it's hard to say that
his team will be back playing for
afiother state final next year.
"It's difficult to get to this game,"
'he said. "I wish I could say. I can't
wait to be talking to you next year,
but I know Santa Fe has a lot of
young players and they'll probably
one of the top of the class next year,
and we're probably a lot younger
than they are."
N.M. airls Class 4A state tournament
• Gallup stresses defense in statetitle win
played wonderful," Turner said.
"Defensively is what we are. We're
a defensive team and they came out
and played great defense and they
gave me the full effort like they
always do."
The title game was the third
meeting between the two schools
as both teams split the series during
the regular season. Kirtland won the
first meeting in the championship
game of the Gallup Invitational
with a wild 67-58 win in mid-
December. The Bengals evened
the series in January with a 67-60
BY QUENTIN JODIE
NAVAJO TIMES
i
ALBUQUERQUE - Gallup's
second-year coach Kamau Turner
didn't coin the phrase "offense
sells tickets and defense wins
championships," but that was how
the Gallup Lady Bengals mapped
out their fifth state crown March 11
before a sold-out crowd at The Pit
with a 60-46 romp over top-ranked
Kirtland Central in the Class 4A
state final.
"They came out there and
NAVAJO CODE TALKERS ASSOCIATION
Attention: Navajo Code Talkers
General Membership Meeting
10am • Saturday • March, 19o 2011
Navajo Nation Museum • Window Rock, AZ
The Navajo Code Talkers Association (NCTA) extends an invitation
and encourages all Navajo Code Tatkers and their families to attend
this very important meeting,
The agenda will include:
A. Presentation, Review & Discussion of the Artistic
Drawings/Renderings for a conceptual building design of
the future National Navajo Code Talkers Museum &
Veterans Center
B. Veterans Services Information -please bring your important
documents, i.e. DD214, SS Award LetterS, etc.
Please Note:'Yhe meeting is open only to the immediate families of
the Navajo Code Talkers:
A. Navalo Code Talker
B. Spouses/Widows of Navajo Code Talkers
C. Sons & Daughters of Navaio Code Talkers
The NCTA asks the general public to respect this request. Thank you,
For Information
NCTA Office, 928-688-5202
_ , info@navajocodetalkers.org 'j
r
victory.
"The first time we played Kirfland
my point guard was injured,"
Turner said of Stacey Charley, who
played power forward last year.
"Now she doesn't get the credit she
deserves. Nobody believes she is
one of the top six or seven players
in the state regardless of class.
"But I know what Stacey means
to us and every night she comes•
up big time for us and when she
is healthy we're a totally different
team and we showed that tonight,"
he added.
With Charley on the floor the
Bengals had an easy time breaking
down KC's defense that led to
numerous breaks on offense.
Holman, who previously
coached the Farmington boys'
basketball team, later downplayed
the significance of the finals by
making reference to the disaster in
Japan.
"If you want to talk about a
tough day, it's a tough day in Japan
right now," he said. "We just lost a
basketball game."
Still, Holman praised Gallup's
team as they also stood tall on the
boards with fi 39-25 edge against
his team, which is considered
New Mexico's most storied girls'
basketball program.
But again it was the defense
that was emphasized as Gallup
scored 19 pointsoff Kirtland's 28
"I was just doing my job, just turnovers.
like coach asked me to do,:' said
Charley, who finished with 11
points. "We knew Kirtland was
going to pressure us the whole
time, but I think we handled it."
But from a momentum
standpoint, it was Gallup's stifling
defense that seemed to dictate the
pace of the game as Kirtland had a
tough time finding the hoop,
"1 guess it was a tough day but I
believe there were 25 other teams
wanting to be here on that tough
day," Kirtland Central coach Kevin
Holman said of making the finale.
"Our defense was what got us
here," said Gallup junior Celia
Herrera, who finished with 11
points. "We just worked on our
defense and we didn't really care
about shooting. That's what coach
kept telling us, don't worry about
your shots falling in, what matters
is our defense and that's what we
stuck with."
Herrera and Charley got Gallup
going with four points each in the
opening quarter as the Bengals
staked out a 15-7 lead heading into
the second. Not surprisingly, the
wa, ew. NIAVAJ OTI ME S.coM
Bengals got six of those points in
transition while Brittany Gutierrez
canned a three.
Kirtland, which was seeking its
19th state crown, trimmed Gallup's
lead down to 17-16 with 5:18 left in
the second quarter on a two-point
baske t by junior post Tessa Begay
to cap a 9-2 run.
But after that, Gallup responded
with back-to-back treys by Shelby
Nelson and Robyn Antone, which
led to a 33-23 halftime lead.
"We just pushed ourselves,"
Herrera said when asked about
Kirtland's run. "We played them
before and basically we had to keep
the intensity going."
The intensity didn't waver for
Gallup after the break as they
opened up the secorld half on'a
quick 6-0 run for a 39-23 cushion
that forced Holman to call a
timeout,
The Kirtland coach was hoping
that his team would "win the first
three minutes of ,the second half,"
but the Broncos helped the Gallup
run with three turnovers.
"We had a couple of turnovers
and Gallup made some shots and
stretched it out," he said. "I guess
it could have gotten a lot ugly, but
not with these ladies. They have
too much heart and they battled
through until the final horn."
After that timeout, though, the
Bengals padded their lead to 41-23
with 5:31 to go on a trey by Justina
Prairie Chief, who led all scorers
with 16 points.
KC's Meghan Yazzie finally
ended Gallup's rally with a put-
back and she closed out the quarter
by scoring seven of her team's nine
points as they trailed 49-32.
Afterwards,' Yazzie reflected
on the positives and followed
Holman's talk about Japan's dire
situation.
"We lost this year and I would
have loved to win it again this year,
but like coach said, this is only a
game," she said. "I am really proud
of my teaImnate s and I really love
them to death:: :
"This is kind of hard for me to
lose, but it's just a game right now,"
she added. "I put it all out on the
floor and tried my best throughout
the whole tournament."
In the fourth, Gallup put the
finishing touches on their 27-4
season by keeping Kirtland at bay
despite being outscored 14 to ll.
And in the closing seconds of
the game, Holman inserted injured
guard Taradena Mitchell as, she
attempted one shot despite a right-
ACL injury.
- "I wished I could have played the
entire season," said Mitchell, who
was sidelined at the beginning of
the district season. "But it meant
the world to come out on the floor
and play with my girls."
Despite losing in the
championship game, the Broncos
ended the year with a 28-2 record.
"Our hats off to Gallup Bengals
and coach Turner and we wish
them congratulations," Holman
said. "Yeah we wanted to win
tonight, there is no doubt and you
know Gallup wanted to win, but
when you walk up the ramp and
think 28-2 is not a great year, I
guess I'm in the wrong profession: