Valley captures first-ever Epic Tourneys title: Tuba City girls take Knight division crown

Posted by Quentin Jodie | Dec 31, 2023 | Basketball |

MESA, Ariz. – The Valley Sanders girls basketball team won its first-ever title at the annual Epic Tourneys New Years Classic on Saturday night.

Navajo Times | Quentin Jodie

Valley Sanders guard Kaelynn Nez (2) drives inside the paint against Skyline post Jordan Seiuli on Saturday night. Nez finished the game with a game-best 32 points, leading the Lady Pirates to a 63-49 win.

Senior Kaelynn Nez carried the Lady Pirates to a 63-49 win over Mesa Skyline, the host team, for the Coyote division championship.

“That girl is just an awesome player,” longtime Valley coach Dorothy Mitchell said of Nez. “She’s a senior, and she’s going to go all out every time she plays. She just plays hard, and, you know, she tries to get her teammates involved as well.”

Nez finished the contest with 32 points, with half of those points coming in the second stanza as Valley erased a two-point first-quarter deficit into a 39-22 halftime cushion.

“She’s picked up her scoring more so this year than I’ve ever seen before,” Mitchell said.

The pint-sized guard proved to be too quick for Skyline’s defenders. She used crossovers to score while getting to the free-throw line. All told, Nez tallied 12-of-12 from the charity line.

“I think it’s mainly our passes,” Nez said. “We had to work from outside, and then we would cut and drive it in to get that foul.”

Sophomore guard Alayna Begay complemented Nez’s production with a dozen points, six of which came on three-pointers.

Defensively, the Pirates sped up Skyline as the 6A squad shot 14-of-44 from the field while coughing up the ball 19 times.

Navajo Times | Quentin Jodie

Valley Sanders guard Trinity Mitchell looks for an open teammate while being guarded by a Skyline defender on Saturday night at Skyline High School in Mesa, Ariz.

“We started pressuring them like we usually do,” Mitchell said. “You know, they’re bigger than us, but when we started moving the ball quick, they got tired. We just kept pushing and pushing.”

Mitchell hopes to keep their momentum going as Valley is 3-0 in 2A North play. The Pirates resume conference play on Saturday by hosting Hopi before playing at St. Johns on Jan. 8.

“This was a very good team effort,” Mitchell said. “I think they’re finally getting their chemistry together, but we’re not there yet.

“We have a lot of things to work on because we got to play some tough teams,” she added. “We got St. Johns coming up.”

In other tournament action, the Tuba City Lady Warriors captured the Knight championship with a 40-36 win over Higley High.

In the Tiger division, Gilbert defeated Window Rock 40-37 in the championship game, while Many Farms came up short of Leading Edge for the Charger title. Leading Edge won 45-36.