Navajo Prep girls get going in second half to top Crownpoint

CROWNPOINT – The best team in District 1-3A girls basketball needed a half to get warmed up on Tuesday night.

And when they did, the aura that surrounds the Navajo Prep girls basketball team was systematically restored as the Lady Eagles posted a 55-35 win over Crownpoint before a large crowd.

As of note, the visiting Eagles were without their head coach Rainy Crisp, who was held up in a late meeting in Gallup on Tuesday.

“A lot of us had to step up,” Navajo Prep senior Kassidy Jones said. “We rely a lot on our defense, so I have to give a shout out to everyone on our team.

“Our underclassmen and bench stepped it up, especially when the starters didn’t start as strong,” she added.

The visiting Lady Eagles received some resistance from Crownpoint as Navajo Prep took the lead for good late in the second period on a 11-2 run.

Navajo Prep junior guard Kameron Dale scored all of her seven points during that pivotal stretch as Navajo Prep erased a six-point deficit and led 24-21 at the break.

In the second half, the visiting Eagles shifted into another gear as they outscored Crownpoint 31 to 14 in the final 16 minutes.

“Going into the half, we had to revisit what our priorities were,” said Navajo Prep assistant coach Nadia Begay-Watson, who filled in for Crisp. “You know, defense is something they definitely pride themselves on, so it was just making sure that they were shifting to where they needed to go. I think that was a big thing for them in the second half.”

For much of the game, Begay-Watson rotated players in and out, as the visiting Eagles kept their legs fresh. In the second half, that proved to be a huge difference.

“That’s always great to have,” Begay-Watson said. “I mean, Rainy has always had a real deep bench. That’s always great because it gives our starters some rest.

“A majority of the time they don’t miss a beat,” she added. “Sometimes it’s our second-string girls that are making those plays and getting the lead for us.”

Navajo Prep had two players in double figures with sophomore Lelani Wood scoring a team-best 14 points while Jones added 13, which included three treys.

“I feel like we were putting too much on ourselves,” Wood said of the difference of the two halves. “We were playing their game and not ours. They were playing at a fast pace and once we got into the locker room we talked about how to slow ourselves down.

“It was just having patience because we didn’t want to come out (in the second half) weak,” she added. “We talked about having a lot of patience. We talked about not playing their game and just slowing down the tempo.”

Early in the contest, Crownpoint matched Navajo Prep’s defensive intensity as both teams were forcing turnovers.

The hometown Eagles took a 7-4 lead after a layup by freshman Holly Jiron with 1:52 to go.

Navajo Prep, however, closed the first stanza on a 6-1 run as the visiting Eagles led 10-8 heading into the second.

In the next stanza, Crownpoint used an 11-3 scoring spurt to grab its largest lead of the night at 19-13. Crownpoint junior post Amy Murphy started that rally with a pair of inside buckets.

With 6:09 left, Jones momentarily broke that Crownpoint spurt with a wide-open 3 for a 13-12 Navajo Prep lead.

Nonetheless, the hometown Eagles scored the next seven points, which included a trey by senior Arabela Balicat. A reverse layup by Jiron gave Crownpoint it’s 19-13 edge with 4:56 left.

Navajo Prep, however, showed why they are one of the top programs at the 3A level as they held Crownpoint to 16 points for the rest of the way.

Of those second-half points by Crownpoint, juniors Miley McMillian scored five while Courtney Craig had four as both players finished with nine points apiece.

“I have to give credit to Crownpoint, they played great,” Begay-Watson said. “But in the beginning our shots weren’t falling. That was the biggest difference in the second half because we had better shot selections and we were not forcing it. We were trying to make things happen, and let it come to us.”

With its 20-point win, Navajo Prep (14-5) leads District 1-3A at 5-0. Tohatchi (10-8) and Newcomb (15-4) are tied for second at 4-1 followed by Wingate (3-3), Thoreau (1-4), Crownpoint (1-4) and Zuni (0-5).

“I feel like we’re starting to peak at the right time,” Jones said. “When we started our district season, we pushed our defense a lot more and that is what is getting our offense going.

“I think taking all the losses we had early in the season to Monument Valley, Chinle and Kirtland has really helped us prepare for these moments, especially in front of a crowd like Crownpoint,” she added. “We learned how to keep our composure.”

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