Flag High advances to 4A title game

WINDOW ROCK – Behind a game-best 30 points from senior Teghan Martin, the Flagstaff girls basketball team is headed back to the 4A state championship game.

The third-seeded Lady Eagles beat 4A Grand Canyon Region rival Mingus Union for the third time this season with Martin leading Flagstaff to a 59-49 win on Tuesday night.

“To get back to the championship game is just special,” longtime Flagstaff coach Tyrone Johnson said in a telephone interview with the Navajo Times. “I’m really proud of these girls and I’m happy for these girls because we have a lot of new faces, we have a lot of inexperience at the varsity level and these girls kept improving throughout the year to put us in position that we’re in right now.”

Flag High is making its third trip to the 4A state finals within the past four seasons. The Eagles will face No. 4 Eastmark, a team that beat FHS 46-42 earlier this season. The 4A championship game is slated for 6 p.m. on Thursday night in Phoenix at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“We have to look at some stuff and make some adjustments,” Johnson said of their rematch with Eastmark.

In Tuesday’s semifinal game, both squads started off slow with Mingus Union knotting the game at 4-all following a putback by sophomore forward Savannah Tobias with 2:06 remaining in the opening quarter.

That basket jumpstarted Mingus Union’s offense as the Marauders opened up an 11-4 cushion following a trey by freshman guard Kenna Cook with 47 seconds left.

FHS, however, capped the period on a 6-2 run with a pair of 3s from sophomore Jaidyn Mcclellan and Martin to trim Mingus Union’s lead down to 13-10 heading into the second.

Flagstaff took the lead for good at 19-17 after a pair of free throws from junior Lexi Neal with just under four minutes left before the break. And although the Marauders hung around, the Johnson-coached team finished out the first half on a 7-0 run to go up 28-21 at halftime.

“We gathered ourselves and our composure a little bit in the second quarter and we went up by seven by the time halftime came around,” Johnson said. “From that point, we wanted to make sure we limited our turnovers while forcing turnovers on them and just finish.

“Our outside shots were not fall as much as we liked, so we had to make sure we get to the basket and put the ball in the hoop,” he added.

Martin spearheaded that effort as she scored 15 of her game total in the third stanza as Flag stretched its lead to 43-27 following a basket by sophomore Nidaya Nez with 2:31 left in the period.

Mingus Union did cut into that 15-point lead and got within 43-33 on a pair of old-fashioned 3s from Tobias, who finished with a team-best 26 points.

Nonetheless, Martin capped the quarter with a pair of buckets including a buzzer beater that gave Flag a 47-35 advantage.

Martin added two more points in the fourth but the damage was already done as the Eagles maintained its double-digit lead for the rest of the contest.

“Teagan’s performance was huge,” Johnson said. “She’s been playing huge these last couple of games. She’s a senior this year, and she’s been to the finals her freshman year and her sophomore year.

“We got knocked out in the semifinals last year and she was determined to get us back to the finals, so did everything that she needed to do from defending, to picking up the majority of scoring to make sure we came out ahead on the scoreboard,” Johnson added.

Flagstaff will be seeking its third state crown on Thursday, with the last one coming in 2023 under Johnson, who was asked if he liked his team’s odds of winning another “gold ball” after its first round playoff win over Walden Grove on Feb. 27.

“I’ve always liked our chances, even when we played in the Open,” the Flag High coach said. “When we were in the Open, we were in that game (with Raymond S. Kellis) and if we play like that throughout, you know, I like our chances against anybody in 4A.

“We just have to play at a certain level,” he added.

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