Defensive effort propels Gallup girls into semis

ALBUQUERQUE

The Gallup Lady Bengals gave up the opening trey to No. 10 Valencia Tuesday afternoon in the 4A quarterfinals.

After that it was business as usually as No. 2 Gallup (26-5) upended the Lady Jaguars 60-37 at the Pit in Albuquerque on the University of New Mexico campus.

Gallup’s defense picked apart Valencia (19-11) for the second time this season. On Tuesday, the Bengals forced 23 steals and converted those into 27 points.

“I thought our pressure was going to cause them problems,” Gallup coach Todd McBroom said. “We caused them a lot of problems the first time.”

In that first meeting last November, McBroom said they missed a lot of layups and in the state quarters they made most of its shots by going 21-of-57.

The Gallup coach said his club came bring a lot of pressure and that was pretty evident in the way they hounded the Jaguars.

“I mean, we got a lot of speed and quick hands and they get after it on the defensive end and the full court,” he said. “We cause a lot of people problems in both spots.”

“Our execution was really good,” Gallup post Rylie Whitehair said. “We were all talking on defense and our defensive pressure was really good.”

With those extra possessions, Gallup had more opportunities to score headed by the 13-point effort turned in by senior Aaliyah Morris and Whitehair with the latter adding 11 rebounds for a double-double.

“Teamwork is key to what we do,” Morris said. “I like to use Rylie a lot and if it weren’t for her we wouldn’t have some of the points we scored, so teamwork is key when it comes to Gallup basketball.”

The Bengals also got 10 points from Kiera Livingston while Kayden Tsosie added seven.

For Valencia, junior Azalia Malizia finished with a dozen and sophomore Jadyn Montoya added 11.

Valencia coach Micaela Medina said they worked on tackling Gallup’s defensive pressure in practice. In fact, she signed up a few boys to try to mimic the kind of speed they anticipated.

“There’s nothing that I can do to truly assimilate what it’s going to be when they get onto the court with the crowd, and the intensity,” she said. “It’s just kind of natural for Gallup to be playing in the Pit, and it’s the first time we experienced it.

“We tried the best we could prepping for it,” she added, “but we just don’t have the legs or numbers that Gallup does.”

The McBroom-coached team advances into Thursday’s semifinals and the Bengals will play No. 3 St. Pius X at 11:30 a.m. at the Pit.

On Tuesday, St. Pius eliminated No. 6 Los Alamos with a 40-36 win.

“St. Pius is a good team,” the Gallup coach said. “We played them in our tournament. It came down to the wire and we ended up hitting a 3 to go up and then we got a stop in the last few seconds.

“They’re a good ball club and we’re going to have to come and play or they’ll beat us,” he added.

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