Defensive effort, third-quarter surge lifts Gallup over KC for District 1-4A crown

By Quentin Jodie
Navajo Times

KIRTLAND, N.M. – A different Gallup girls basketball team showed up with its matchup against top-ranked Kirtland Central on Friday night.

The two teams battled for the District 1-4A championship with No. 2 Gallup winning 49-41. During the regular season, the Bengals came up short to KC by 25 and 42 points, respectively.

“I think we shored up some things on the defensive side,” Gallup coach Todd McBroom said. “We’ve really been drilling the defensive side of the floor because we gave up (88) points to them last time. You can’t win games when you let teams score 80 points on you.

“That is what it comes down to and so it was a total team effort,” he added. “We got a total buy-in from the kids and they took pride in that. It’s something we’ve done in the past, but this year against them in the two games we played, I feel like we didn’t take much pride on the defensive end. We’ve been really drilling on that, and it showed tonight.”

Specifically, McBroom said they made sure they didn’t allow Broncos in the paint with its half-court defense. He also praised his team for closing out Kirtland’s deadly shooters from outside the perimeter.

“A lot of their points came from free throws, so I thought the kids stepped up on the defensive end,” he said. “I felt like we really competed tonight, something that we lacked the last two games against them.”

Offensively, Gallup was led by junior post Kayden Tsosie who finished with 16 points on 4-of-9 shooting. She was 5-of-6 at the free throw line, and she finished with six rebounds.

Junior Mykeia Vicenti chipped in eight, which included a 2-of-4 effort from downtown. In Gallup’s previous meeting with KC, Vicenti was held to one point.

“She played really solid for us,” McBroom said of his junior point guard. “She got into a little foul trouble in the second half, and so we had to rotate her out but defensively, she plays really well.

“She was great with our on-ball defense and she’s one of the best that we have,” he continued. “She handles the ball against the press and that’s huge. We did a good job of taking care of the ball and that was a huge difference and she’s one of the main reasons why.”

The Bengals also receive seven points each from junior guard Marie Nez and senior Camira Cooper-Randles.

After trailing 23-20 at the break, the Bengals took control of the district championship game with a strong third quarter behind a barrage of 3s from Tsosie.

The Gallup post nailed three treys and finished with 11 points as the Bengals outscored KC 18 to 7. With that Gallup led 38-30 heading into the fourth.

“Gallup came out of that third quarter and they really stuck it to us,” KC coach Devon Manning said. “They kind of played with a little more intensity, with a little more energy and a little more fight than what we did. We lost containment on some of their players in that third quarter and they were able to get separation a bit.”

Manning said his team didn’t play well enough to win and he credited Gallup for controlling the tempo of the game.

“It’s hard to beat a team like Gallup once, let alone three times in a season,” he said. “We understand what they bring, and I think if we get another crack at them, we’ll be ready.”

KC was led by senior Haylee Nocki as she finished with a dozen points. Junior Zoey Benally added eight while junior Elaina Clani and sophomore Allyson Tsosie chipped in seven markers apiece.

On Sunday, the Broncos received the top seed for the Class 4A brackets ahead of Gallup, Albuquerque Academy and Hope Christian. The Broncos will host No. 16 Roswell Goddard on Friday night at 4 p.m.

“I think the top four seeds kind of ended up where I thought they were going to be,” Manning said, “so there wasn’t too much of surprise there.”

Barring any upsets, the semifinals would pit KC against Hope Christian while Gallup would play Academy.

“Academy is really solid and they’re huge,” McBroom said. “They have great size with guards and posts. You know, Hope Christian is another team that has great size. Both of those teams have really good size.

“It’ll be a little bit different if that ends up being the matchups in the semis with Hope and Kirtland and us and Academy,” McBroom said. “You know, it’ll be size versus speed, and we’ll see how it works.”

The Bengals are hosting No. 15 Pojoaque Valley at 7 p.m. in the opening round.

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