Ganado repeats at Rehoboth tournament

REHOBOTH, N.M.

Ganado senior Jamaal Coleman started Saturday’s championship game with a dunk at the Rehoboth Christian boys’ basketball tournament.

He added two more in the next eight minutes as that set the tone in Ganado’s 81-32 win over Tohatchi. With that the Hornets repeated as the tournament champions.

As for Coleman, the 6-9 Ganado post finished the game with 13 points and six blocks.

“I just took what my teammates were feeding me,” said Coleman of his exploits, as he was named to the all-tournament

And while his height and size caused some problems for Tohatchi, it was Ganado’s defense that proved to be the catalyst in their huge win. The Hornets scored 31 points off 17 turnovers.

“We are trying to excel in that aspect of the game,” Ganado coach Bob Wolk said. “The kids are picking it up and we are trying to anticipate it more. I think they are having fun doing it.”

It took about four minutes for the Hornets to get going as their defense limited Tohatchi from getting off the shots they wanted with Coleman altering shots. In addition, their full court defense led to easy opportunities on the offensive side.

“Ganado is an experienced team,” Tohatchi coach Jim Smith said. “Their size really bothered us because there was a lot of intimidation on our part.”

Admittedly, Smith said his team played very well at the start of the opening quarter as his team trailed 8-2. But after Coleman’s second throwdown with 4:38 left to go, Ganado did some of its best work defensively. Those stops and turnovers helped open a 22-6 lead after one quarter of play as all-tournament selectee Michael Yellowhair scored five points.

In the second quarter Ganado freshman guard Daunte Morgan increased Ganado’s lead to 33-9 after nailing two treys in a two-minute span.

Fellow teammate Justin Curley then took over by scoring nine straight points for Ganado, sandwiched between four points from Tohatchi junior post Rooster Yazzie.

Curley putback with just less than two minutes gave Ganado a 44-15 advantage. The junior guard led all scorers with 18 points as Ganado had four players in double figures. Coleman chipped in 13 while forward Darryl Lincoln helped out with 12 and Yellowhair had 11. The Hornets also had senior Timothy Benally finish with nine points.

“I am going to play 10 deep this year and I think these kids are learning to play with each other,” Wolk said. “I thought we played well and I got some kids some minutes and that’s good for the morale.”

In the third place game the Rehoboth Lynx scored on nine consecutive possessions at the end of the second quarter to gain a 32-23 lead.

That burst of energy changed the tide as the Lynx trailed 13-6 in the opening quarter en route to a 57-45 victory.

“What we’ve talked about is our defense leads to our offense,” Rehoboth coach Kevin Zwiers said. “When we’re playing better on the defensive end and getting rebounds our offense seems to work better.”

Zwiers said he was pleased with their third place finish as the Lynx played three tough teams. Rehoboth opened the tournament with a 58-52 win over Denver Christian in the opening round. In the second round, they faced tournament winner Ganado and lost by a 75-33 count.

“We’re happy that we got to play these teams,” Zwiers said, while noting that these games will prepare them for some intense games at the end of the season.

---