KC girls advance to 4A title game: Crownpoint, Gallup, Tohatchi, Farmington come up short

ALBUQUERQUE

A fifth meeting between Gallup and Kirtland Central will not take place this year.

The second-seeded Lady Bengals were dealt a major blow in its title defense as No. 3 Bernalillo held off Gallup, 63-59, in a back-and-forth affair on Thursday night inside the Pit in Albuquerque.

Bernalillo will play Kirtland Central in the Class 4A state title game at 8 p.m. tonight.

KC was the only local team to advance into the finals as Crownpoint, Tohatchi, Gallup, and Farmington girls came up short in their respective semifinals.

The Lady Broncos (26-5 overall) locked up its 32nd state title appearance by outlasting No. 4 seed Portales by a 48-43 count.

This will be KC’s third try in recent years to bring home the program’s 20th state crown.

“It’s gonna be hard,” KC coach Devon Manning said. “We’ve come up on the short end of the stick the last few times and so hopefully these girls will rise to the occasion again.”

The Broncos advanced by holding off Portales after turning a one-point halftime edge into a 35-25 cushion going into the fourth.

“That is what we talked about, trying to get a little bit of a separation there,” Manning said. “We got some open 3s and we took advantage.”

The Broncos nailed three treys in that third quarter including two by senior Andrea Thomas.

“We didn’t have a whole lot of open 3s tonight, but in that two-minute stretch I think went 2-of-3 maybe on 3-point shots and we took advantage,” Manning said. “We made some layups, and I thought our pressure was pretty good today.”

Despite a furious rally by the Lady Rams in the fourth, KC senior Adriona Largo secured the win with an inside basket with 16 seconds left to make it a two-possession contest.

“That late layup was big,” Manning said. “Again, these girls were just awesome. At the end, they knocked down shots when we needed them to.”

KC got 11 points from senior Aisha Ramone while Thomas added nine and Kiera Beall-Gleason chipped in eight and Teghan Begay had seven.

Portales was led by Kylyie Paden as she scored 24 points, including a perfect 11-of-11 effort from the free-throw line.

In the late game, Gallup was outscored 20 to 15 in the final stanza.

After trailing by a point at the end of the third quarter, Bernalillo used a 14-8 run to open up a 57-52 cushion after Leah Valdez hit her second trey of the night.

The Lady Spartans then hit 6-of-10 free throws to secure the four-point win.

“I thought the girls played hard and, you know, we missed some shots (while) they seemed to hit their shots,” Gallup coach Todd McBroom said. “Some of their role players shot the ball well. You know, they hit some 3s on us. And some of them shot better than what I thought they would shoot.”

All told, the Spartans had a 7-of-20 effort from the 3-point line with most of those looks being facilitated by senior Juliana Aragon, the New Mexico Gatorade Player of the Year.

Aragon turned in an all-around game of 21 points and 11 assists.

“She’s good and it just worked out to where she finished some shots,” McBroom said. “She made shots and she got assists.”

The Spartans also got 15 points from Nizhoni Keeto while Valdez had 13 and Gabby O’Hara added 12.

For Gallup, senior post Hailey Long had a massive game as she finished with 19 points, 20 rebounds, and seven assists.

“Before the game coach talked about how the focus was going to be on the guards,” Long said. “But there was an opening in the middle and, you know, we had decent enough height with our posts, and we were capable enough to go inside and score points and get rebounds.”

Gallup’s other post, freshman Rylie Whitehair added nine.

Gallup ends its season at 25-5 overall.

Tohatchi, Crownpoint girls

In the 3A bracket, No. 2 Tohatchi Lady Cougars dropped a 43-41 decision to third-seeded Santa Fe Indian School.

Other than a perfect 7-of-7 effort from WynterRose Sheka (21 points) from the 3-point line, the Cougars struggled mightily as they went 15-of-50 from the field.

The Cougars were also 2-of-9 from the charity line.

“Not just on the 3-point line, we had opportunities inside to finish,” Tohatchi coach Tanisha Bitsoi said. “The ball just didn’t roll our way. All those little things, even our free throws and we’re usually consistent with our free throws, they all add up at the end.”

In her second game back, sophomore Brook Badonie shot 2-of-17.

“I don’t know what was going on,” Badonie said. “They just wouldn’t fall. Everything felt right and I was hitting them during warmups but when it came to game time they just weren’t falling.

“Even my layups, I usually finish at the basket,” she added. “I’m a good finisher, but it kept rolling out.”

For Santa Fe Indian, Jordan Torres had 14 and Taryn Aguilar had 12.

Crownpoint, meanwhile, was on the wrong end of a 51-37 defeat to top-seed Las Vegas Robertson.

Despite a three-decade absence from a state semifinal game, the Lady Eagles were still in it as they trailed 29-25 after a 3-point shot from senior Kaleigh Shorty with 4:33 left in the third.

But in the quarter’s final three minutes, Robertson forced five turnovers as they got up 39-27 going into the fourth.

“They just put more pressure on us,” Shorty said of Robertson. “They caused us to make more turnovers than we usually do.”

“They’re really aggressive on defense,” Crownpoint senior Erin Etsitty said while adding that they had a difficult time keeping Robertson off the boards.

“It was really hard because they were taller than us, and they’re a lot stronger than us,” Etsitty said. “And they kept getting around us. It was really hard, but we were trying though.”

Both players led Crownpoint with Shorty scoring 15 while Etsitty had a dozen.

Farmington

In the 5A bracket, Farmington struggled to find their range in the first three quarters before making 8-of-10 shots in the fourth and scoring 21 points.

That last-ditch effort was not enough as top seed Volcano Vista eliminated the Lady Scorps 67-55.

“I think we kind of got confused with the red and blue line,” Farmington coach Larenson Henderson said. “And I think we were stepping back further than we should. I tried to tell the girls to at least stand on the red line and that fazed us a little bit.

“It took us out of sync,” he added. “This is a big stage and I know the girls can make them. I knew we were going to have these opportunities and we just didn’t capitalize on them.”

Going into the fourth, Farmington was 12-of-40 from the field, including a 9-of-33 effort from the 3-point line.

Behind its near-perfect shooting in the fourth, the Henderson-coached team cut Volcano Vista’s lead down to 60-53 with 4:31 left after trailing by as much as 23 points.

“We’re the fighting Scorpions, no matter what,” said Farmington senior Kiiyani Anitielu, who finished with a game-high 24 points. “We were down, but it didn’t matter. We just wanted to keep running, keep playing because that’s our sport – that’s our passion.

“That comeback was such an amazing feeling, such an amazing feeling,” she said.

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