Gallup, Bloomfield, KC girls notch wins on Tuesday night

GALLUP – With the district season in its homestretch, the Gallup girls basketball team is looking to finish out the regular season strong.

On Tuesday night Gallup won its fourth straight game as the Lady Bengals posted a 55-17 win over the visiting Shiprock Chieftains in a key District 1-4A contest.

The two squads had played the night before, with Gallup winning 51-32 in a makeup game that was rescheduled due to inclement weather earlier this season.

In Monday’s game Shiprock gave Gallup fits as the Chieftains trailed 24-20 at the break and 35-26 heading into the fourth quarter.

“We missed a lot of easy shots that I thought should have fallen,” Gallup coach Todd McBroom said of Monday’s game. “It’s just the way it works sometimes but tonight (Tuesday) we were able to make those shots and we extended the lead early and we put pressure on them.”

The two district wins improved Gallup’s record to 17-6 overall and 6-1 in league play. The Bengals are hoping to pull even with district frontrunner Kirtland Central (20-2, 7-0) as the Broncos posted a 62-27 win over Aztec on Tuesday night.

In other District 1-4A action, the Bloomfield Bobcats defeated Miyamura 51-38 on the road

“This is a big win for us,” said Bloomfield coach Brady Rivers, whose team improved to 15-7 and 3-4 in district. “Miyamura is always a tough team to beat. The coach (Vena Vallo) is doing an outstanding job over there and so we knew we had to come in here ready to play.”

Bloomfield led by as much as nine points — 17-8 — in the opening half, but the Lady Patriots ended the second quarter on a 6-1 run with junior guard Heaven Lee hitting back-to-back treys.

Lee’s second three beat the halftime buzzer as Miyamura closed within 18-14 at the break.

The two squads traded some early buckets to start the third stanza as the contest remained a two-possession game. That was until the Bobcats flipped the script by playing team ball. Bloomfield got some good looks at the basket, whether it was in transition or through set plays, as the Bobcats opened up a 37-26 cushion heading into the fourth.

“The girls started to look for one another and when we did that we started to play more like a team,” Rivers said. “We actually started to have each other’s back, so to speak, and that took the pressure off of them.”

Senior post Aliya Quintana came up big in that pivotal third period as she scored nine of her game-high 17 points.

Bloomfield also received 11 points from its other post in senior Danielle Johnson.

For Miyamura, junior Kaytoinette Ross led the Patriots with 13 points while Lee finished with nine. Senior Laurn Begay chipped in eight.

The Patriots (5-18, 1-6 in district) will host Shiprock on Friday night before closing out the district season with games with Aztec on Tuesday and Gallup on Feb. 23.

Bloomfield is entertaining Kirtland Central (20-2, 7-0) on Friday. Next week, the Bobcats will host Shiprock on Tuesday and play at Aztec on Feb. 23.

Gallup

In Tuesday’s rematch with Shiprock, Gallup seized a 29-10 halftime lead and never looked back as 6’0” junior post Rylie Whitehair finished with 18 points, which included three and-one plays.

“Riley hasn’t changed any from last year,” McBroom said. “She’s a strong girl and people have a hard time with her inside. She doesn’t get as many calls when she does get fouled but maybe I’m a little biased about that, but she’s tough.”

McBroom utilized an army to wear down the Chieftains as the Gallup coach went 13-deep.

“The idea is to keep our kids fresh, so we try to play a lot of kids,” McBroom said. “We’ll press and go hard for a couple of minutes and then they’ll take a break.”

That strategy took a toll on Shiprock as the Chieftains (8-15, 0-7) scored a season-low 17 points in district play. (Earlier this season, Shiprock finished with 14 against 5A top-ranked Farmington Scorpions.)

“We ran out of gas,” Shiprock coach Robert McCaskill said. “It’s hard to play back-to-back games. You know, Gallup plays a platoon-like type of game. They were subbing out girl after girl and their girls don’t drop off a level. They’re pretty much the same and they just go, go, go.”

Despite being winless in district play, the second-year coach is seeing some progress as the Chieftains have come up a tad short to Bloomfield (36-34) and Aztec (32-27) in a pair of close games.

“We’re getting better, and they’re starting to do the fundamentals on a more consistent basis,” McCaskell said. “We’re still learning how to win. We just need to continue to do the stuff that we’re doing well, and they’re learning that when you get to district your focus has to be sharper, but like I said we’ve had some really good games.”

And while they came up short to KC by 71-31 count earlier this month, McCaskell was pleased with their efforts.

“That was a victory for me because they came out ready to play,” he said. “I was proud of them because usually when we play with Kirtland they’re scared to death, and they weren’t.

“They did decent,” he added. “They were using some of the fundamentals they’ve learned into the game.”

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