Tohatchi claims Gallup tournament title

By Truman Begaye
Special to the Times

GALLUP – The 81st Annual Gallup Bengal Boys Basketball Tournament championship culminated in a commanding 66-47 victory for the Tohatchi Cougars (12-2) over the Thoreau Hawks (6-6) on Saturday evening.

In the championship game of the six-team tournament, the Cougars showcased a balanced offensive effort, with four players scoring in double digits.

Senior guard Kyle Yazzie led the charge with 23 points, followed by the dozen points turned in by senior forward Adriano Begay and junior guard DeAndre Rios. Senior guard Josh Dawes added 10 points to round out the scoring.

For Thoreau, three players accounted for 42 of their 47 points. Senior guard Stetson Perry paced the Hawks with 18 points, while senior forward Ty Tahe and junior guard Jordan Calladitto chipped in 12 points apiece.

The opening quarter saw Thoreau take an early lead, thanks to a quick 3-pointer by Elyjiah Becenti and seven points from Perry. Perry hit two 3-pointers, the second coming with 39.6 seconds left in the quarter, marking the Hawks’ final points for a four-minute stretch.

Tohatchi countered with contributions from four players, totaling 13 points. Yazzie led with five points, while Dawes and Begay each added three. The Cougars ended the quarter trailing narrowly but poised to take control.

The second quarter witnessed Tohatchi explode on a 20-2 scoring run, effectively putting the game out of reach for Thoreau. The Hawks ended their drought with two free throws from Ty Tahe at the 5:46 mark. Thoreau managed to score seven of their nine second-quarter points in the final two minutes.

For Tohatchi, Rios knocked down two 3-pointers to lead with six points. Senior Valentino Dawes added five points, while Yazzie contributed four.

The Cougars entered halftime with a commanding 33-19 lead.

Tohatchi opened the second half with nine unanswered points, including two 3-pointers by Rios and one by Yazzie. Thoreau broke their silence with a 3-pointer from Calladitto at the 5:33 mark.

The Cougars continued to dominate from beyond the arc, sinking five 3-pointers in the quarter and outscoring the Hawks 21-17.

The quarter ended with a controversial moment when Josh Dawes launched a two-thirds court shot at the buzzer. Although it swished through, it was waved off by officials, much to the dismay of the crowd.

Yazzie put in 10 of his game-best 23 points in the third with Tohatchi leading 54-36 entering the fourth. For Thoreau, Tahe put in eight in the quarter.

The final quarter saw both teams trading baskets. Begay led Tohatchi with six points while Thoreau also received six from Perry.

“Defense was our strategy,” Tohatchi coach Lionel Livingston said of his team’s championship run. “We’ve been preaching about it with the guys and that’s what we came out to do. We told them if we can make more stops than (the opposing team) and limit them to just one-and-done shots we’ll be a lot better.

“That’s what we did with the first round against Grants and the second round against Gallup,” he added.

When asked to comment on Dawes’ buzzer-beating attempt in the third quarter, Livingston believed it should have counted.

“We looked at it and he said, ‘I only took two steps,’ so I’m gonna go with my guy on that but it was a good momentum keeper on us,” Livingston said. “He hit that and, even though it didn’t count, (it) was a good momentum swing for us because it got the crowd into it and with that being said we just kept rolling with the crowd and feeding of it.”

Despite winning by a large margin, the Tohatchi coach says his team still needs to make improvements.

“We gotta work on entry passes and other things that need fine tuning. At times you can see it we play like a three-man ball,” he said. “But we are gonna improve on it; we gotta improve on a lot of things like back side cuts and stuff like that so we’ll get there.”

Both teams are members of District 1-3A and they will face each other at least two more times in the district season. The first meeting will take place on Jan. 18 at Tohatchi with the second meeting at Thoreau on Feb. 12.

On Wednesday, Tohatchi opened the district season at home with Navajo Prep while Thoreau hosted Newcomb.

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