Shorthanded Gallup boys lose to St. Pius

GALLUP

Filling up the scorebook will be on the back-burner for the Gallup boys’ basketball team for now.

The shorthanded Bengals dropped its record to 1-2 overall after falling short to Albuquerque’s St. Pius on Thursday night.

The Bengals, which played without three veterans, were on the wrong end of a 57-50 setback to the 5-1 Sartans.

“We’re trying to hold our water by playing tenth- and ninth-graders,” Gallup coach Josh Dunlap said. “But that’s no excuse. I just thought tonight (the Sartans) played at their pace, not at our pace.”

The Bengals are playing without sophomore Isaac Toehe and seniors Kody Touchine and Trey Bruner.

Dunlap said the three missing guys play heavy minutes, and he doesn’t expect them to be back until the end of the month.

“When those three come back, I think you’ll see the pace of play, and the discipline will go way up,” he said. “We’re playing a lot of young guys. I’ve rotated 13, 14 guys in tonight, and this is the most I’ve played.”

As for the game’s pace, Dunlap said this year’s squad is not playing with the energy it usually does.

“If you watched us the last three games, this isn’t the pace that you’ve been used to seeing our team,” he said. “I’m really counting on my leaders to get this right. I think the biggest message to my team is: do you want to lose pretty or win ugly?”

In Thursday night’s contest, Dunlap said, the theme leaned more to the former.

“I just think we’re too pretty sometimes,” he said.

In a nip-and-tuck first half, the Bengals led 26-22, with senior Kohannon Altazon putting in 10 of his team-best 17 points.

Behind some transition baskets, the Sartans opened the second half on a 10-2 run, taking a 32-28 advantage on a pull-up jump shot from senior guard Jordan Rodriquez, who finished with 10 points.

A 3-point shot from Altazon in the middle of a 9-2 run gave Gallup some new life as they led 37-34 with 1:17 left in the third.

St. Pius, however, ended the quarter on a scoring blitz getting three fast-break baskets for a 41-37 cushion.

The Sartans never relinquished that lead as both teams traded buckets for much of the fourth.

The Bengals did get within 53-50 on a bucket by senior Joaquin Ortega with 1:13 to go.

In the game’s waning moments, the Sartans hit 4-of-6 free throws to seal up the win.

“This is a tough place to play, and we knew coming out here this was a great basketball environment,” St. Pius coach Ryan Myers said. “Without us not being able to play in front of fans last year, this was great for both teams just to have people out there, and it’s always good to get a road win.”

With some lengthy players, the Sartans caused some problems for Gallup as they got 13 points from senior post Tanner Davis and eight from junior forward Brian Kalb.

“We have a couple of big guys this year, so we’re trying to take advantage of that size,” Myers said. “You don’t get that size every year, so we definitely don’t want to waste it.”

The two big men also aided the Sartans in running a few set plays as they fed their guards, cutting to the basket.

Coming into the game, Myers said they wanted to focus on containing Atazhoon and Ortega.

“(Atazhoon) is the best player we’ve played against all year,” he said. “He’s incredibly talented, and he can score in many ways.

“Him and (Ortega) were the two guys that we were really focused on,” he added. “They hit some tough shots, and every time we felt like we went on a scoring run, those guys hit some tough, contested shots.”

The two Gallup players combined for 33 points, with Ortega scoring 15.

As a team, Dunlap said his squad made some really solid plays, but they need to get its running game going again.

“I think we’ve cut our turnovers down since the first game, but if we don’t play fast and play our kind of basketball, we really don’t have a chance of trading baskets with these big Albuquerque teams,” he said. “I hope the guys understand that it’s not OK to just trade baskets.”

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