Bloomfield holds off Shiprock to claim title

SHIPROCK

It took a rough season and a lot of growing up for the Bloomfield boys’ basketball team to finally show some moxie.

In a tight championship game with Shiprock during the Shiprock Chieftains Tournament last Saturday, the Bobcats let their claws out and defeated the Chieftains 43-41.

Bloomfield head coach Devon Manning said it was a game full of flaws but one that proved his boys are now young men.

“We want to be playing that type of game at the end of March. We have a long ways to go, but when we go watch the film, we’re going to watch how bad we really were too,” Manning said. “To be bad and to win a game like that, it shows a lot to the kids, they wanted it so bad.”

Their hunger for victory didn’t just show at the end but throughout all four quarters of the game.

Shiprock jumped up ahead 10-2 with less than three minutes left in the first quarter, but Bloomfield made a 7-0 run to trail Shiprock 10-9 and the end of the first quarter.

A free throw to start the second quarter tied the game 10-10. The two teams kept the game tight throughout the second period, evening the score at least four times before Bloomfield closed the half with a 3-0 run and led 25-22 at the half.

Shiprock head coach Chester Atcitty said going into the game, the plan was to shut down key Bloomfield guard Malachai Pablo, but that wasn’t enough. Bloomfield had other weapons to keep them in the game.

“We went right to it, took him out of the game pretty much, but you see what kind of player he is and how he creates; he’s just a great-phenomenal athlete. You can’t stop him,” Atcitty said. “You can try, we did hold him down to the points that we wanted to, but Christian…smooth, big problem. We got to do a better job on him next time.”

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