Bigs tip the scales for Gallup girls in quarterfinals

GALLUP

The bigs of the Gallup girls’ basketball team made a difference in Tuesday’s quarterfinals of the New Mexico Class 4A state playoffs.

Junior forwards Jordan Joe and Hailey Long paced the Lady Bengals as they combined for 35 points with Joe leading the way with 24.

“Our bigs are as good as anyone,” Gallup coach Todd McBroom said of his junior tandem. “They may be a little bit outsized tonight because they had, you know, a couple girls around 6-2, but as far as skills and how to use their bodies and create angles, our girls are as good as anybody. I’ll take them any day of the week.”

The two Gallup players acknowledged their skills sets as a way to counter the size disparity, as they created space to score over the tall Hornet players.

“We had the advantage when they played us from behind and we had the advantage (when) we sealed them in the front,” Long said, adding their post moves made it difficult for the Hornets to defend them.

“We had to get the right moves to score,” she said. “And then we got (all) those rebounds.”

Joe said when they realized they could play with Highland, their confidence surged and that surprised the Hornets.

“We played as a team and on the court they were getting mad at each other,” she said of Highland. “They didn’t have that teamwork that we had, so I think that’s how we won.”

Of course, the two teams had to make things interesting in the final seconds of the contest as Highland had a chance to either tie it or take the lead.

With 2.4 seconds, the Hornets had to inbound the ball three-quarters away from their basket and after two timeouts by both clubs Highland tried to lob the ball to 6-1 senior guard Cailee Crawford.

But Joe denied that entry pass as Gallup moved into Thursday’s semifinals with top-seeded Portales. The game will be played at a neutral site at Santa Rosa High School and it’s scheduled for 4 p.m.

“I knew that they were going to give it to that tall girl,” Joe said of Crawford, who is headed to San Diego State next season. “I knew they were they were going to lob it because it’s all they’ve been doing the whole game.”

Prior to that game-saving effort by Joe, the Bengals benefited from a miscue from Highland as they had six players on the court after a timeout by Hornets coach Lonnie Neal with 2:16 to go.

The Hornets were assessed a technical that put Joe at the charity line and her two made free throws gave Gallup a 52-49 cushion.

Junior Michaela McCurtain added a free throw to give the Bengals a two-possession lead but with 12.6 seconds Crawford was fouled as she had a chance to complete a three-point play.

She missed the ensuing free throw and Gallup pushed the ball down court trying to extend its two-point lead. The Hornets corralled the missed layup and called timeout to set up their final play.

And while the final defensive play sealed the win for Gallup, McBroom said the victory was a result of an accumulation of things.

The Bengals held Crawford to six early points before she exploded for nine in the fourth as she finished with 15.

“I don’t know what she ended up with but I thought Michaela and Savannah (Watson) … did a great job on her,” McBroom said. “We just had the ball bounce our way tonight. That is what it comes down to. We grabbed some rebounds and I’m going to give credit to our little guards too. They were battling and they got just as much rebounds as our bigs. It was a team effort.”

With the two-point win, the Bengals took an extra step on the bracket after their quarterfinal loss to Highland last year.

“Last year was the only year that we haven’t been to the semis,” McBroom said. “I mean, the two years previous we were in the semis, so it’s not new territory. Most all these kids have been there and they were on those teams.”

In other 4A action, the Kirtland Central girls advanced with a 48-45 win over No. 3 seed Bernalillo.

“Well, we had a really good start, we had a really good first quarter,” KC coach Devon Manning said. “We kind of struggled the rest of the game a little bit. They threw us something that we weren’t prepared for and it’s something that we having seen yet.”

In the fourth, Manning said, they opened up their lead to as much as 12 points before pulling out the three-point win.

“I thought overall we played a really good defensive game,” he said. “We were going up against a very good guard and we held her under her average.

“It was just the offensive end that was very disappointing,” he added. “We missed a lot of layups and we could have extend the lead a little bit but I thought our defense was solid overall, giving up 45 points.”

The Broncos will play at No. 2 Espanola Valley on Thursday at 5 p.m.

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