Tohatchi boys run away with Gallup league title

GALLUP
The Tohatchi boys basketball team got off to a fast start and pulled away from the Rehoboth Christian Lynx in the finals of the Gallup Boys Basketball League.

Eight different Tohatchi players reached the scorers book as the Cougars won the league championship with a 44-20 win Tuesday night at Gallup High School.

“We kind of started sluggish at first, but once we got going I didn’t hold them back,” first-year Tohatchi coach Kendall Livingston said. “I told them to keep pushing the ball; we filled the lanes in transition and we were making layups left and right.

“We also made some key stops,” he added. “We were covering the middle guy at the top of the key and that kind of worked in our favor.”

The Cougars scored the first six points before the Lynx got a three-pointer from sophomore-to-be Trajen West, who led Rehoboth with 12 points.

Tohatchi then scored 18 of the next 20 points for a 24-5 halftime cushion.

“Tohatchi is a quality team,” Rehoboth assistant varsity coach Dan Meester said. “They got some size and they know how to use it well. We don’t have the size they have, and so it’s a challenge for us. We just need to learn how to respond to that.”

Meester, who was filling in for head coach Kevin Zwiers, said his club played two earlier games on Tuesday and fatigue started to set in the title game.

“Playing three games in one night is always hard,” he said. “We’re not super deep; we have a lot of young guys and they don’t have a lot of experience.”

Tohatchi got 21 points from its front court players with forward Dwight Manygoats and post Talan Long combining for 17 points.

“Our bigs are a lot more mature this year,” Livingston said. “Last year we were still trying to teach them how to post up. I have to give (credit) to them because during the summer they worked their tails off and they developed their game a little bit more. It’s paying off now because we were putting up some good shots.”

The Cougars were led by guard Kyle Yazzie as he put in nine of his 12 points in the opening half. Senior-to-be Josh Dawes added seven.

Dawes said they dominated the championship game by playing good defense, which gave them more opportunities to score on the offensive end.

“It was mainly our defense,” he said. “Basically, we talked about what we needed to work on and what we needed to do to get the ‘W’ and we executed.”

A couple of weeks ago, the two teams played each other with the Cougars eking out a close win over the Lynx.

“We didn’t have our bigs then, but they gave us a good fight,” Dawes said. “They’re a good team, but we just came out on top.”

To reach the title game, the Lynx outlasted Gallup JV by a 37-26 count while Tohatchi battled back from a four-point deficit to post a 51-47 win over district rival Thoreau.

“We started off slow and during halftime we made some adjustments,” Dawes said. “We did a lot more talking on the floor and we also played better defense.”

Meester said playing in the four-week Gallup league will pay off in the long run as the Lynx were looking to find their legs with four new players on its squad.

“I’m really proud of our guys,” he said. “Over the course of playing 25 or so games, we did really well coming out in second place. I’m really happy with that.

“You know, it’s easy when things are going well,” he added. “It’s harder when times get tough and those are the things we talked about as a group, even more so than the X’s and O’s.”

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