Top-ranked KC girls roll past No. 2 Gallup

By Quentin Jodie
Navajo Times

KIRTLAND, N.M. – Winning another District 1-4A crown is certainly within reach for the Kirtland Central girls basketball team.

The top-ranked Lady Broncos (20-2) looked as strong as ever on Thursday night as the purple and gold wallowed past defending 4A state champ Gallup (18-4) in another walkover win.

The Broncos had eight players score headed by the game-high 35 points from junior forward Allyson Tsosie en route to an 88-46 win before a capacity crowd at Kirtland High School.

“Our energy was great tonight,” KC coach Devon Manning said. “You know, that was a good team effort from everybody. I thought everybody who stepped on the court contributed one way or another.

“The scary thing is I still think we can be better,” he added.

Offensively, the Broncos also received a dozen points each from junior guards Elaini Clani and Zoey Benally. Senior Haylee Nocki chipped in 10 and sophomore Saige Sorrelhorse finished with eight.

Still, it’s Tsosie that makes the KC girls a tough matchup for any team. On Thursday, she created opportunities for herself and teammates as Gallup had no answer for the junior prodigy.

“She had a really good game tonight,” Manning said of Tsosie. “You know, she let the game come to her. For the most part, she took shots that were there for her and once she gets going, she’s hard to stop.”

Tsosie opened the first quarter with 11 points and at the break she matched Gallup’s halftime total as KC took a 41-23 advantage. The KC junior then finished the second half with a dozen more points with eight coming in the third stanza.

“I’ve been putting a lot of work with my shooting,” Tsosie said. “Other than driving it in, shooting is what gets me going.”

During a two-minute stretch, she scored seven straight points as KC opened a 9-2 lead with 4:35 left in the first period. Later in the quarter she added back-to-back buckets for a 16-8 cushion with 2:41 left.

Gallup, however, recovered from that early deficit and used an 8-3 run to close the gap to 19-16 heading into the second with junior forward Kayden Tsosie putting in five of her team-best 18 points.

That was as close as the Lady Bengals would get as KC started the next stanza scoring 14 consecutive points, which was spearheaded by Allyson Tsosie. She scored nine in that run as her 3-pointer with 3:51 left earned the Broncos a commanding 33-16 advantage.

“We were flat, and we didn’t play well,” Gallup coach Todd McBroom said. “It’s two games in a row where we haven’t shown up, we haven’t shot the ball well and we haven’t taken the ball well. Those are all things that are fixable and we’re going to keep working on them to fix them.”

For Gallup, Kayden Tsosie was the only player in double figures as junior Laylanah Williams and senior Summer Joe finished with seven points apiece while junior guard Marie Nez added six.

“We just need to have more people be efficient, and that is what it comes down to,” McBroom said of getting Kayden Tsosie some help. “I mean, they shot around 58% on twos and ours were in the 30s and that is not going to work. We have to do better on both ends.”

The Gallup coach acknowledged that they had too many turnovers (26), and that gave KC plenty of opportunities to score.

“It’s a normal Kirtland team right there and they put good ball pressure, but it’s nothing that we can be able to handle,” McBroom said. “And that’s on us, we have to take care of the ball better.”

With the win, KC sits atop the league standings at 6-0. Gallup and Shiprock (12-10) have identical 4-2 records in the district race, but the Bengals beat the Chieftains 66-36 earlier this year.

Aztec come in fourth at 13-9 overall and 3-3 in district, followed by Bloomfield (10-12, 1-5) and Miyamura (4-18, 0-6).

“We’re close to getting the district, but that’s not our goal,” Manning said. “We could care less about winning the district right now. In general, I don’t care if we win district or not. We have a bigger goal in mind.

“Again, it’s my job to keep these girls humble and hungry and be ready for next week,” he said.

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