Tohatchi girls win tiebreaker over Navajo Prep

NEWCOMB, N.M. – There were no letdowns this time.

On Monday the Tohatchi girls basketball team substantiated its status as the top-seeded team for the upcoming New Mexico Class 3A state playoffs that gets underway next week.

The Lady Cougars beat district nemesis Navajo Prep for the regular season district crown in a tiebreaker game held at Newcomb High School as both clubs split the season series 1-1.

The defending state champs used a 22-3 run over 11 minutes to post a 45-33 win over the Lady Eagles.

“I don’t like to look at the numbers, but tonight’s win does confirm that No. 1 seed,” Tohatchi coach Tanisha Bitsoi said. “I really don’t want to think about that, but I’m very proud of what we’ve done so far.

“Moving forward we can’t be content, and we can’t be comfortable with this,” she added. “The seedings are just numbers so this is not the end for us. We still have to continue to play Lady Cougar basketball if we want to win another state championship.”

Earlier this season, Tohatchi won the first meeting with a come-from-behind 38-36 win in mid-January. Last week Navajo Prep forced the tiebreaker game with a 47-40 triumph.

“We played them the other day and we didn’t match Navajo Prep’s physical play,” Bitsoi said. “I felt like we played with more urgency tonight. We hit some big shots and we got after those 50-50 balls.

“That was key for us in getting that lead,” she added.

Senior guard Brooke Bedonie agreed while noting that they were surprised with Navajo Prep’s physicality last week.

“We didn’t expect them to come out like that on Saturday,” said Badonie, who finished with a team-best 14 points. “In today’s game we didn’t let them push us around. We pushed back.”

The Cougars started off the district tiebreaker with a pair of baseline threes from juniors Kayanna Capitan and WynterRose Sheka for a 6-0 cushion.

Navajo Prep, however, battled back and momentarily took a 12-11 lead following a basket from senior post Maureen Ford with three seconds left in the opening quarter.

Nonetheless, the Eagles fouled Tohatchi’s Brooke Badonie before the buzzer sounded. The senior guard connected on 2-of-3 free throws as Navajo Prep was assessed a lane violation for exiting the court.

At the 7:29 mark of the second period, Navajo Prep took its last lead, 14-13, when sophomore Kameron Dale nailed two free throws.

The Cougars then went up 19-14 behind a pair of treys from senior Marisa Denetso and Capitan, but the Eagles didn’t go quietly.

Navajo Prep’s Aniya Johnson (16 points) scored a layup and her teammate Lailah McGary cut Tohatchi’s lead to 19-18 with a putback with 1:53 left in the first half.

Things, however, took a major turn as Tohatchi finished out the half on a 5-0 run for a 24-18 cushion. After the break, the Cougars continued to play with poise as they put up 11 points to Navajo Prep’s two in the third quarter.

That surplus pushed Tohatchi’s lead to 37-21 heading into the fourth. That cushion blossomed to 20 points (41-21) in the early going of the last stanza as Navajo Prep missed 13 consecutive field goals during its drought.

“It was a poor shooting night for us,” longtime Navajo Prep coach Rainy Crisp said. “We couldn’t buy a basket and we missed a lot of layups. But at the same time we had a lot of turnovers as well.

“Tohatchi did a really good job of playing the type of defense we played on them the other night, so the tables turned,” she added. “We played a good first half, but we didn’t come out as strong in that third quarter. We just have to find a way to come out stronger and get to the basket.”

Trailing by 20 points in the fourth quarter, the Eagles put one last run together as they outscored Tohatchi 12-4 in the last six minutes of the game. The score could have been much closer, but Navajo Prep missed 10-of-12 free throws during that stretch.

“We made a little run, but we missed a lot of free throws,” said Crisp as her club hit 12-of-24 at the charity line for the contest.

As the league champion, Tohatchi has a bye and will play in Saturday’s district championship with the time and site yet to be determined.

With the loss, Navajo Prep earned the district’s second seed. The Eagles played Newcomb last night while No. 3 Zuni hosted No. 4 Thoreau in the second round of the tournament.

The winners of Wednesday’s game will play on Thursday at the higher seeded teams’ homecourt.

“You know, we have to get there first,” Crisp said when asked if she was anticipating a fourth meeting with Tohatchi on Saturday. “We can never underestimate anybody in our district. We have to shake this game off and bounce back.

“If anything I’m glad that we played this way against this team (Tohatchi) right now,” she added. “Hopefully, we got this game out of our system to where we bounce back for this week.”

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