Shiprock girls avenge loss to KC

KIRTLAND

Tradition.

It is a concept most of the Shiprock High School girl’s basketball team has only heard, but on Tuesday night, it was something they finally learned.

The Lady Chiefs stepped up to pick up a 47-45 win over District 1-4A rival Kirtland Central after the Lady Broncos handed them their only loss in league play weeks before.

Both teams are now 8-1 in the district.

Shiprock head coach Larenson Henderson said the goal was to not only get back the win but also to get them to learn how to deal with the pressures of such games.

“Our girls are friends with them (Kirtland Central) and we kind of don’t want to compete with our friend, if you want a good friendship, compete a little,” Henderson said. “We showed discipline. I think executing and moving the ball around making good, smart passes and making good high-percentage shots really helped us.”

For most of the first half, the friendship got in the way.

Both teams had a slow start and a hard time getting things going. They were tied 3-3 at the end of the first quarter.

Midway through the second quarter, Shiprock pulled out a 6-0 run, only to have Kirtland Central hit two back-to-back threes and go on an 8-0 run to tie the game 16-16 going into the half.

Henderson said his team was feeling the pressure in the first half and they also struggled to compete against their friends, the Lady Broncos. He said after a halftime speech, they got things going.

“You learn a lot about yourself when it comes to pressure, ‘are you going to deal with it or are you going to let it control you, or are you going to be tough and get some character in play,’” Henderson asked his team. “We go in and play some teams that we know we can dominate; we just don’t have that same feeling when we come down here when we play Kirtland.”

Kirtland Central head coach John Zecca said his team simply struggled. He said they struggled in their last few games and it carried into the game Tuesday night.

“We’ve been trying to tell these girls ‘yeah, everybody’s going to give us their best game,’ that goes without saying. Shiprock always is no matter what position we’re in, we’re going to get Shiprock’s best,” he said. “We struggled a little bit early on with our shooting; nothing was falling at all. I don’t know how we managed to keep the score tied at halftime.”

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