’Prep boys finish well, win Striking Eagle Invite

FRUITLAND, N.M.

The Navajo Prep boys’ basketball team has had some good finishes.

The last of those came over the weekend when Navajo Prep went 3-0 in the Eagle bracket of the Native American Striking Eagle Basketball Invitational. The Eagle bracket was the top tier bracket in the boys division.

Navajo Prep head coach Rick Hoerner said the team didn’t have the best starts throughout the tournament but they finished well.

“It’s just not that we won it but the way we won it,” he said. “They had to come behind from a really good team. You know that you have the ability to come back and really play to that level, and get a win like that, I think it has a very big impact.”

The team first defeated the Native American Community Academy out of Albuquerque, 67-35, then Cuba, 55-51, and finally Page (Ariz.), 49-48.

Hoerner said in all three games the team had rough starts, which he has yet get to figure out, but his team pulled through.

With Cuba, he said the team barely got through the first half.

“We kind of got off to a bad start but won by four,” he said. “They were up 11 at the half. I don’t know how, we’re just not getting off to very good starts.”
In the championship game, Navajo Prep and Page went back and fourth going into the second half.

With little time left and ahead by two points, his team fouled a three-point shooter, and Page sunk all three free throws.

With 5.6 seconds left on the clock, Hoerner said his team drove in for a basket for the win.

“I thought Page was really good, that was definitely a plus for us,” he said. “NACA wasn’t (as competitive), but that’s kind of what happens at tournaments sometimes. The other two we played were a little tougher.”

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