Red Mesa rallies past Superior
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero Red Mesa Hunter Pipkin (21) drives the ball towards the basket against a Superior Panther defender Saturday during the Class 1A boy’s basketball quarterfinal game at the Prescott Valley Center in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz.
The Red Mesa boys basketball team saw an eight-point lead evaporate as they trailed 56-54 with 4:04 left in regulation.
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
Red Mesa Hunter Pipkin (21) drives the ball towards the basket against a Superior Panther defender Saturday during the Class 1A boy’s basketball quarterfinal game at the Prescott Valley Center in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
“They can play and I just needed to settle them down and get refocused,” Red Mesa coach Al Begay said. “We talked about having them play their game and I think they were trying too hard shooting from the outside. We had to go inside.”
With no panic, Red Mesa scored seven straight points and took the lead for good on a three-point play from Wilson Simpson. He added another basket while Garrett Benally capped the run for a 61-56 lead with 2:05 left in the game.
Superior did cut the deficit down to three points, but they had back-to-back turnovers and sent Red Mesa to the line for the rest of the game. Red Mesa made 7 of 12 at the charity line.
We’ve worked on free throws in the last month, but we missed some key free throws down the stretch,” he said.
Nonetheless, Begay was happy that his team continued this great ride.
“From the start of the season the boys had their focus on playing for the Final Four and the state championship game,” Begay said. “They are still focused on getting there.”
Their drive to get this far stems from last year’s 46-44 setback to Superior, the same team they played in last Saturday’s quarterfinal.
“We lost that game on a last second shot,” Simpson remembered.
With that, he said his team wants to bring home the gold trophy at the conclusion of the state playoffs, which ends on Saturday at the PVEC.
Red Mesa is scheduled to play NFL YET at 9 a.m. on Friday with the championship game taking set for 1 p.m. in Prescott Valley.
Begay feels that his team is playing their basketball right now and they are going to stick to what they know going into Friday’s contest.
“We’re a running team and we like that fast tempo,” he said.
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Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow