Miyamura garners third place at Gallup Invite
Navajo Times | Adron Gardner Miyamura Patriot Gabe Lee Jr. (11), left, drives to the basket under pressure from Deming Wildcat Alex Villa (12) during the Gallup Bengal Boys Invitational Tournament at Gallup High School Jan. 7.
GALLUP
Navajo Times | Adron Gardner
Miyamura Patriot Gabe Lee Jr. (11), left, drives to the basket under pressure from Deming Wildcat Alex Villa (12) during the Gallup Bengal Boys Invitational Tournament at Gallup High School Jan. 7.
It was something they learned about themselves in the Gallup Bengals Invite held over the weekend when they won the third place game over Deming, 75-69.
The Patriots first met and defeated Sandia Prep in the opening round of the tournament and then came across hometown-rivals Gallup in the semifinals and came up short.
Miyamura head coach Andrew Blanco said his team could have let the loss get the best of them, but instead they came back strong for the third-place victory.
“That’s hard to do when you get beat by 20 something and come back and try to respond to that,” Blanco said. “I got to give praise to our guys because they worked hard.”
The two teams were fairly matched with the exception of Deming having a small height advantage.
Their similar play style left the teams tied 17-17 after the first quarter.
Miyamura scored one more bucket than Deming in the second quarter to lead 34-32 at the half.
Blanco said his team came out with a tenacity that kept them in the ball game when they could have easily folded.
“It could have been easy to come out here and play flat and not play at all, especially when the team was as hot as they were with all them three balls,” he said. “They (his team) weren’t giving it to them, they (Deming) were shooting them.”
The Patriots matched Deming’s three-point plays in the first half to keep things close.
Miyamura remained unfazed with Deming’s inside presence, continued to crash the boards and held on to the lead 52-51 after three quarters.
In the final quarter, Deming started to run out of gas and made the mistakes Deming head coach JD Longoria hoped they wouldn’t.
He said they were inconsistent and it cost them the game.
“We did a little bit of falling asleep; we do something good down here then defensively we don’t get the rebound, we leave a guy wide open to shoot it,” he said. “We’re a young team and that’s what we’re trying to get is some consistency… We did well inside, but then we missed a lot of layups too, that killed us, right there at the end.”
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