District season looking up for some area teams

FRUITLAND, N.M.

The important games coaches have been talking about all season are finally here.

The district season is well underway and most of the girls’ basketball teams are where they want to be.

As expected, the Gallup High School Lady Bengals currently lead the District 1-5A race with an undefeated record of 3-0, as of deadline.

Gallup, who is No. 1 in their class and No. 2 in the state, have flown past their district rivals, often winning by about 30 points, But according to head coach Kamau Tuner they have a lot more work to do.

“I think we’re doing alright. We can always play better. I just kind of look at the things we need to work on,” Turner said. “We won every game by about 30 points, you can’t really complain about that. Offensively things seem to be working fine, defense, it could be better.”

After winning their tournament in December, Turner said his team still had a long way to go if they were going to be in the position they are now in.

Turner said the team has made the improvements he had hoped. Along the way they have picked up a few surprises.

“We are a better team since we were in our tournament, we worked out some things, we’ve got some players that are playing better,” he said. “We’re deeper now than we were at that time, coming off the bench we have some more young ladies that really earned confidence.”

Turner said the team has also continued to play well as a team and if they stay mentally focus they’ll be where they want to be at the end of the district season.

“We can’t take anything for granted. We have to come to play every single night,” he said. “We’ve got to use district to prepare us for the state tournament because that’s our ultimate goal.”

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