AIA 3A girls playoffs: Ganado’s ‘sixth-man’ motivates Lady Hornets to victory

BURNSIDE, Ariz. – The benefits of having homecourt advantage played dividends for the Ganado girls basketball team on Friday night.

The level of support they received inspired the Lady Hornets to a come-from-behind victory in the quarterfinal of the Arizona Interscholastic Association 3A State Championship playoff game at the Ganado Pavilion.

The third-seeded Hornets (15-8) trailed No. 6 Valley Christian (16-5) for most of the contest, but Ganado fashioned a 9-0 run in the last two-and-half minutes to pull out a 76-69 win.

“I have to give a lot of credit to the crowd because our girls definitely fed off the energy from the atmosphere,” Ganado interim coach Abigail Benally said. “They just fed off of that and we were able to be successful there at the end.”

In other 3A playoff action Friday night, top-seeded Chinle (23-1) reached the Final Four round by defeating Coolidge 51-29. The Lady Wildcats will face No. 5 Payson, which earned a 60-44 win over No. 13 Sabino, in the next round.

In Snowflake, the second-seeded Lady Lobos advanced with a 59-51 win over No. 7 seed Monument Valley.
The 3A playoffs will continue on Friday, Feb. 28 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix with the state semifinals. The championship is slated for Saturday, Mar. 1 at 1:30 p.m.

Valley Christian, which rained in a dozen treys, snatched its last lead of the night when sophomore guard Abby Grier hit a 3 for her 26th point of the contest. Her sixth trey earned the Lady Trojans a 69-67 edge with 2:29 left

The Pavilion, however, reached a fever pitch as Valley Christian missed its last three shot attempts as the Hornets closed out the ‘W’ with junior post Jayanna White and senior guard Faith James tallying the last nine points with White scoring six.

“We just had to dig deep,” said James, who was honored after the game for scoring her 1000th point earlier this season. “Honestly, the fans is what motivated us. They inspired us and they pushed us. With everyone cheering like that, we couldn’t let them down.”

James finished the contest with a game-high 30 points on 10-of-18 shooting, which included three treys and 7-of-8 free throws. With her total, James pushed her career total to 1,214 points heading into Friday’s semifinal game with Snowflake in Phoenix.

“I’m so proud of myself because I always worried that I wasn’t going to make (1000 points),” James said. “Throughout my whole high school career I wanted to inspire they youth.”

Benally, who took over the coaching duties on Feb. 11, finalized James’ stats prior to Friday night’s game.

“We found one of the old books from last year and we put that in with MaxPreps,” Benally said. “But, yeah, that just shows how hard she has worked and how much her offensive game has shown.

“Just her leadership at the end is what got the girls together,” she added. “She is definitely the heart of our team. A lot of the girls are really inspired by her work ethic and her competitiveness. She’ll do whatever to help her team.”

And while James buoyed the team on both ends of the court, she received helped with senior Shayli Walker and White scoring 15 and 14 points, respectively. Meanwhile, junior guard Jasah McIntosh had a quiet nine.

“What it took was a lot of teamwork and finding each other,” Walker said. “Our coach, Abigail, has really stepped up as our head coach. We had it rough at the beginning of the season and now we’re pulling it together. We’re coming together as a team and that’s really showing on the court.”

Walker tallied eight of her points in the opening quarter as Ganado battled back from an 8-3 deficit and led 24-23 going into the second.

“I have to give a shout out to Shayli because she was on fire,” Benally said. “She was doing everything that she could to help us win.

“I think tonight was just like the Winslow game,” Benally said of its previous playoff game. “It was a group effort, a team effort and I’m really proud of them. I know that they were able to step up when it mattered.”

As for Valley Christian putting a ton of 3s and making a dozen, Benally said that was in the team’s scouting report.

“We knew they were gonna stay in the game with their 3-pointers,” the Ganado coach said. “We allowed them to make a couple of 3s throughout, but we knew they were susceptible to pressure, so we gave them a lot of pressure.

“But kudos to (Valley Christian),” Benally added. “They played a great game tonight, and they were ready for us as well, so it was a well fought game from both sides.”

---