Crownpoint girls seeing vast improvements from last season

CROWNPOINT – It’s taken some time for the Crownpoint girls basketball team to gel under new head coach Byron Murphy.

On Saturday, the Lady Eagles improved to 7-6 overall with a 60-11 drubbing over Rehoboth Christian.

Of the 13 games they’ve played, nine were in tournament games as Crownpoint placed third at West Las Vegas, fourth at Wingate and seventh at Pojoaque Valley as it saw some tough competition.

“I always believed that if you play the stronger teams, you’re able to learn a lot more,” Murphy said. “I think that’s what the girls took in at those tournaments. They’re getting along with each other and they’re starting to click. Each game, we’re building and building, and I think it has a lot to do with those tome teams we played.”

With only two seniors (Arabela Balicat and Raenique Begay) and a handful of underclassmen, Murphy says he has a good group of girls as most of this year’s squad returned from an 8-18 outing last season. Assisting Murphy this year is Joy McMillian and Abby Bodie.

“We’re still kind of in a rebuilding year,” Murphy said. “The biggest thing we’re trying to do is build back their confidence because they had a tough year last year.

“It was so bad, that some of the girls didn’t want to come out for the team just because of the way the program was ran,” he added.

Since taking over, Murphy has changed the culture. He has instituted his brand of coaching, which includes paying attention to the details.

“What I told them at the beginning of the season was I’m gonna bring a little bit of old school back,” Murphy said. “It’s about getting back to the basics and do a lot of running. That is what we mainly do, we do a lot of running.”

The new Crownpoint coach acknowledged things didn’t start off smooth as some of his players were a little resistant.

“For a while I wasn’t their favorite coach, but they’ve come to see that all that running does help them in games,” Murphy said.

Sophomore guard Miley McMillian has noticed that change.

“This year you can really see a difference,” McMillian said. “When we played West Las Vegas we played them man for most of the game. It’s a big improvement from what we did last year because we couldn’t play man at all.

“This is a big upgrade from what we did last year,” she added. “We’re pushing ourselves to run more. We’re in better shape this year because everyone has gotten faster.”

Junior guard Kathryn Francisco agreed.

“Most of the girls on this team returned last year and I think we’re more conditioned,” Francisco said. “We really work a lot with running. In past years, it wasn’t as much, but conditioning in our No. 1 thing.”

Scoring-wise the Eagles are led by junior forward Courtney Craig, who is averaging 10.8 points per game. McMillian comes in next at 8.9 ppg followed by freshman Holly Jiron at 7.9 ppg.

“One of our goals is to have everyone score,” Craig said. “I think that will help keep us motivated.”

Like her coach, Craig said they’ve learned a lot from playing a tough schedule which includes games with 4A squads Bloomfield, Taos and Pojoaque Valley as well as 3A teams in West Las Vegas, Sandia Prep and Wingate.

“It taught us a lot of things,” Craig said. “It taught us to be mentally strong. It taught us to be closer together.”

On Tuesday, Crownpoint played its last district game against Navajo Pine. The Eagles are set to start District 1-3A play with Wingate at home on Tuesday. During the Wingate tournament, the Murphy-coached team fell to the Bears by a 57-44 count.

The rest of the league members include defending 3A state champs Navajo Prep, Newcomb, Tohatchi, Thoreau and Zuni.

“We play in one of the toughest district,” Murphy said. “Tohatchi has always been tough. Navajo Prep has always been tough, and we want to be as tough as they are. We’re trying to build our program up to their level.”

Murphy believes the district crown will come down to the little things as most of the teams are evenly matched. In fact, this week’s New Mexico High School Coaches poll has six district teams ranked in the top 10. Navajo Prep leads the pack at No. 4 followed by Tohatchi, Thoreau, Crownpoint, Wingate and Newcomb in ascending order.

“We’ve made some short term and long term goals,” Murphy said. “Our short term goal is to make the playoffs and our long term goal is to play in the Pit.

“That is what we’re working on,” he added. “What we’ve told them is we need to start strong and finish strong.”

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