Newcomb girls top tourney host Shiprock for Jerry Richardson Memorial crown

By Quentin Jodie
Navajo Times

SHIPROCK – The Newcomb girls basketball team made it a point to let everyone handle the ball.

The five players on the court created some space as their passing and cutting led to some easy baskets on Saturday night as the Lady Skyhawks (3-0) defeated tournament host Shiprock in the championship game of the 2025 Jerry Richardson Memorial Tournament.

“We try to play a five-out, you know, like a motion offense, so everybody touches the ball,” Newcomb second-year coach Nathan Brady said following Newcomb’s 36-31 triumph inside the Chieftain Pit at Shiprock High School.

Afterward, Lady Chieftains coach Robert McCaskell praised coach Brady and Newcomb girls basketball team for handing his team’s first defeat of the season.

“Coach Brady does a good job and his girls played very well,” said McCaskell, whose team dropped to 3-1 overall. “They have some pretty good guards there, but we played nowhere near to what we’re used to playing.

“We normally get good shots within our offense, but today we really didn’t run our offense and we didn’t play defense,” he added. “The game kind of panned out the way I thought it would because Newcomb always give us trouble regardless of who they have out there. Ever since I’ve been here, Newcomb has given us problems because it’s their family and friends.”

McCaskell said his team played nervous and he tried to get them to relax to no avail.

“With the crowd that we had, and with them playing their friends and families, we were so amped up that they were feeling the pressure,” he said of his club. “I tried to get them to relax, but we really couldn’t relax. It is what it is, and we just have to move on from this.”

The Skyhawks trailed only once 4-2 in the early going as their fluid offense created some mismatches. Even their post players handled the ball, something that Brady has ingrained his players to do so since taking over the program last season.

“I think a lot of the reservation schools, you know, from Rainy Crisp (of Navajo Prep) to Tuba City’s Pete Butler, we stress the fundamentals, even with the post players,” Brady said. “We make sure that they can handle the ball, you know, dribbling up and down the court, and making sure they can jump stop and make good passes.

“It’s something the reservation coaches teach,” he added. “We all try to keep the fun in the fundamentals.”

Tournament MVP Lethia Yazzie said it took a while for her team to take advantage of their ball-sharing scheme to take effect.

“We started off a little sluggish, but after we started communicating, we got our rhythm going,” said Yazzie, who finished with a game-high 10 points.

She put in six of her points in the third stanza as her layup gave the Skyhawks a 29-17 cushion with 44 seconds left in quarter.

Shiprock, however, received a much-needed trey from senior Nicolette Howard, as that 3-pointer cut Newcomb’s cushion to single digits heading into the fourth. That trey jumpstarted a 10-0 run as Shiprock got within 29-27 following two free throws by Makayla Howard with 6:16 left.

In the final six minutes, the Skyhawks buckled down on the defensive end as they yielded two baskets while scoring seven.

“It was about executing down the stretch,” Brady said of the difference. “We had to make sure that we had a good combination in there and every one of them had to handle the ball. We couldn’t just depend on Lethia. We had others handle the ball.”
And despite a few hiccups with turnovers, the Skyhawks prevailed.

“I know we had a couple of turnovers, but we kept reassuring the kids to be stronger with the ball,” Brady said. “They stayed composed and it paid off.”

In addition to Yazzie’s 10 points, Newcomb received eight points from freshman post Neveah Chee.

Shiprock was led by Makayla Howard who finished with seven points. Nicolette Howard added six while junior guard Kylie Benally chipped in five.

To reach the championship game, Shiprock defeated Pine Hill 57-20 while Newcomb outlasted Bloomfield 33-31 on Friday night.

“It’s a confidence booster, but I think our last two games we played sluggish,” Brady said. “We couldn’t find a rhythm offensively, but our defense was there. We were moving around, and we were getting steals, deflections and tonight we were able to see the ball go into the bucket a few times.”

In the third-place game, Bloomfield beat Pine Hill 53-34 while Monument Valley, Utah won the consolation championship with a 62-45 win over Thoreau. In the seventh-place game, Hózhó Academy posted a 58-20 triumph over Shiprock Northwest.

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