SENAI: Piñon girls take gold in Roadrunner Bracket

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The Piñon girls basketball team is looking to start a new tradition under first-year coach Shane Begay.

The Lady Eagles (9-3 overall) won its first tournament title on Saturday by downing the Hózhó Academy Wolves, 50-39, in the championship game of the Roadrunner Bracket at the 2025 Striking Eagle Native American Invitational at Miyamura High School.

“This is something new for the girls program at Piñon,” Begay said. “In Arizona, we’re not recognized as a powerhouse and we’re looking to change that. I was telling our seniors that you guys are going to start a tradition and you guys are going to start a culture.

“We got girls all the way down to the elementary playing basketball,” he added. “We’re hoping for them to stay in Piñon and not venture out to the other local schools.”

Behind some superb rebounding, Begay liked the intensity level that his Piñon girls brought in the opening half. The Eagles also did a fantastic job of moving around Hózhó defense while looking for some good clean looks at the basket. Those two factors helped the Eagles to a 31-19 halftime cushion.

“The extra passes got our offense flowing,” Begay said. “Sometimes you can get settled in with your offense where the players are standing around, but those extra passes got us going.

“Some of those passes eventually turned into pretty passes that everybody likes to see,” he added.

As for crashing the boards, Begay said it’s something they have been struggling with.

“We’re trying to be more aggressive with rebounds,” he said. “You know, I made it clear today that if we get some offensive rebounds that’s easy points for us.

“Defensively, we just had to man up and just be strong out there,” he added. “We had to be strong to fight for them rebounds and it really showed in this game.”

Offensively, Piñon senior Shanna Begaye, who was named the MVP, provided a spark as she put in 18 of her game-best 26 points in the opening half.

“I’m actually really happy about receiving this award, but I wasn’t expecting this,” Begaye said. “I saw these trophies and they were pretty, and I just wanted to go all out.”

Begaye nailed two early treys for an 11-6 lead with 3:38 left in the opening stanza. In the next quarter, she scored seven including a personal 5-0 run that stretched Piñon’s advantage to double digits at 27-17 with 1:48 left.

Hózhó (8-3) cut that margin to eight on a pair of free throws from junior captain Khloe Todecheenie, but Piñon closed out the quarter on a 4-0 run for a 31-19 advantage.

After the break, the Wolves flipped the script and got as close as 33-31 with 2:49 left in the third.

“There were little things we needed to do as far as fundamentals,” Hózhó coach Shawn Miller said of the difference. “We started to box out and rebound a little bit more and that gave us more possessions. I mean, at one point (in the first half) they had like six offensive boards and that was kind of frustrating.”

The third-year coach also stated that they had to make some adjustment in limiting Begaye’s production.

“We really had to stop No. 3,” Miller said of Begaye. “She had (18) points in the first half, so our main focus coming out there was to start attacking and try to get her into foul trouble.”

The Wolves did that as Begaye sat on the sideline with her fourth foul midway through the third stanza. The Eagles were also without senior point guard Hanka Benally due to fouls.

With those two starters out, Piñon went with a different lineup while clinging to a two-point advantage. With just over a minute left, the Eagles held the ball near midcourt as Hózhó refuse to break from its zone defense. But with five seconds left, Piñon guard Kambrii-Ana Tachine nailed a long-range 3 for a 38-33 cushion as the Eagles carried that momentum into the fourth stanza.

“I’ll take the heat on that one,” Miller said of not defending Tachine. “I made a decision that we stay in our zone. I don’t have the depth that they have, and so we allowed them to run the clock down for us to get a breather, but it cost us.”

The Piñon coach agreed that Tachine’s bigtime shot was a gamechanger.

“You know, that shot meant a lot for us and it was definitely something that we needed because we fell into foul trouble,” Begay said. “We put some girls on the bench, and we were trying to hang in there in that third quarter. We just held the ball for one last shot for a minute or so and I didn’t expect her to shoot from there, but you know she had the confidence to do so. And I’m glad that it went in.”

In addition to Begaye, Piñon also received six points apiece from Benally and Tachine.

For Hózhó, Todecheenie finished with a team-best 16 points while juniors Peyton Toledo and Aubrey Castillo added nine and seven, respectively.

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