Tsé Yi’ Gai overcomes slow start by going inside

PUEBLO PINTADO, N.M.

After a slow start, Edwin Chiquito was pleased with the way his Tsé Yi’ Gai team responded.

The Diné Warriors trailed Ramah 27-24 at the half but in the last seven minutes of the game, Tsé Yi’ Gai looked inside to post a 66-54 win last Saturday afternoon and improved to 12-5 overall and 3-0 in District 1-2A play.

“We were sluggish in the beginning so I had to light a fire under them,” Chiquito said. “We made some adjustments in the second half. We moved the ball a little bit more and we pushed it more instead of sitting on it.”

With the offense being stagnant for nearly three quarters the Diné Warriors finally got going when they were able to get some deep post positions for senior Jacob Trujillo, who led all scorers with 31 points, including 11 in the fourth quarter.

“I usually average about 19 points a game but today my teammates helped me out,” he said. “They got me rolling and I got (31).”

In the opening half, Trujillo said they played uninspired so before the start of the third quarter his team ran suicides on their end of the court to get going.

“We started off slow and coach told us we needed to bring up the intensity,” he said.

Once they got settled, their defense became a lot more solid and they were able to open things up by going to Trujillo and junior post Douglas Whitehorse, who finished with 12.

Ramah coach Boyd Lewis said his team executed their game plan for three quarters as they limited the damage inside.

“Coming in in we knew that 90 percent of their offense comes in the paint with their two big guys,” Lewis said. “The plan was to sag off the three-point shooters and congest the lane and make everything tough for them inside.”

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