Lady Braves hold off Tohatchi Lady Cougars

ALBUQUERQUE

Other than a perfect 7-of-7 effort from WynterRose Sheka from the 3-point line, the Tohatchi Lady Cougars experienced an off night in the Class 3A state semifinals.

The second seed Lady Cougars dropped a 43-41 decision to No. 3 Santa Fe Indian on March 10 at the Pit in Albuquerque.

Sheka finished with 21 points, but the rest of her teammates struggled mightily as they hit eight shots and finished the contest a combined 15-of-50 from the field.

Tohatchi was 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.”

The Cougar’s shooting woes hit sophomore Brooke Badonie awfully hard as she went 2-of-17 in her second game back from a knee injury.

“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.”

Behind Sheka’s four treys, the Cougars erased a 6-5 deficit and led 17-12 at the end of the first quarter.

Sheka added a fifth trey in the second, scoring half of Tohatchi’s six points for the quarter.

“That came unexpectedly,” Sheka said of her crisp shooting. “It just kind of came up when I was playing. I was really happy that I got this opportunity to play here today and be in the Pit.

“I haven’t hit that many 3s in a while,” she added. “It felt amazing my shots were going in.”

Behind Santa Indian’s Jordan Torres’ 11 first-half points, the Lady Braves pulled within 23-22 at the break.

Late in the third, Torres scored her 14th point to knot the contest at 30-all going into the fourth.

Tohatchi opened the fourth on a 9-3 run with Badonie and Sheka hitting a pair of 3s for a 39-33 lead with 5:15 to go.

The Braves, however, chipped away at the lead behind two baskets from senior post Taryn Aguilar.

A trey from Madisen Valdez gave Santa Fe Indian the lead for good at the 3:19 mark, and after a missed shot by Tohatchi she added a 2-point shot for a 42-39 lead with 2:55 to go.

“I think we played from the heart, and we played together as a team,” Valdez said of overcoming the six-point deficit.

“Playing together is what got us through,” Torres added. “That and confidence.”

As for her 3-point shot from the corner, Valdez credited her teammates for finding her open.

“We got a reversal, and that was when I was open,” she said.

Santa Fe Indian assistant coach Teri Morrison said they made some adjustments by “playing catch” and getting their post players involved.

“At the end of the day, we overthink this,” she said. “Coach gets all the credit, but they finally started realizing let’s play catch, let’s get our big kid up here because everybody in the gym was focusing on JJ (Torres).

“That girl can shoot the ball,” she said, “so when that happened, we just started reversing the ball, but bringing it on the same side and isolating our big because the defense can’t guard both.”

Aguilar scored five of her 12 points in that final sequence, sending the Braves into the state championship game as Santa Fe Indian came up short 37-31 to Las Vegas Robertson.

Tohatchi ended the season at 22-8 overall.

“As I look at the stat sheets, man, this is just heartbreaking,” Bitsoi said. “Brooke and Kiana (Bia), you know, have been averaging 20-plus, 18-plus. It’s obviously frustrating, but they’re a young group.

“My heart hurts for them because I know they’ve work hard,” she added. “They’re a hard-working group, and as their coach, it hurts to see them have this kind of game.”

Despite coming two points short of reaching the championship game, Bitsoi said she was still proud of her team.

“I’m thankful that they gave us this opportunity again,” she said. “It’s been a long season, and there have been many challenges and a lot of adversity that this team has faced with many things. We can’t say enough of how proud we are of them.”

With only two seniors on the squad, the Cougars will return 12 players, including her starting five next year.

“We have to get back to what we need to work on to move forward,” Bitsoi said. “And I told them it starts tomorrow.”

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