Gallup wears Shiprock down in powerhouse matchup

GALLUP

In a showdown between two of New Mexico’s powers, the Gallup girls’ basketball team gave first-year coach Todd McBroom something to smile about.

“I thought we had good pressure,” McBroom said following his teams’ 66-58 win over Shiprock last Saturday night. “We had a few rotations out there that was real long. The pressure is what we are going to stand on. We are going to pressure people and we are going to see if they can handle it.”

McBroom said their press wore down a good Shiprock team in the first half, which allowed them to gain some separation as they lead 34-28 at the break.

In the second half, Gallup pushed the lead to as much as 61-51 on a basket by junior Ashley Antone with four minutes left in the fourth quarter.

“We wore them down because they are not as deep as we are,” McBroom said.

But with two minutes left in regulation the Chieftains got a huge three-point shot from sophomore guard Mikayla Charley that made the score 64-57. A minute later, freshman post Aiona Johnson hit 1-of-2 from the charity line to get within six points, but that was as close as they would get.

“I think both halves were OK,” Shiprock coach Larenson Henderson said, adding that he was fascinated by the number of times they went to the charity line as the Chieftains made 27-of-40 free throws to stay in the game.

“The shot selections were there,” Henderson said. “We went to the line and we made (27), which is pretty impressive.”

Henderson said some of his players were coming off a state tournament run in volleyball so they only had four days to prepare for Gallup’s game.

“We mainly ran a lot so we can get our legs in,” he said.

Because of their limited time on the practice court, Henderson said at times his team was out of sync with their press breaker, which led to turnovers. On the offensive end, he said, they did not run their sets effectively.

“We forgot a lot of stuff out there,” he said. “I thought we dribbled too much and I see a lot of things we have to work on.”

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