Santa Teresa Wins Its First State Title in Basketball

It wasn’t their party, but Santa Teresa’s Desert Warriors celebrated all the same.

Santa Teresa locked up its first basketball championship Saturday at the Pit, stopping Gallup 58-43 for the boys 4A title in front of a huge pro-Bengals crowd at the Pit.

Senior Adrian Ortegon racked up a double-double, 20 points and 10 rebounds, to help the Warriors (20-11) pull away in the fourth quarter. Perhaps a few hundred fans wearing black and turquoise, huddled together at the Pit’s north end, made themselves heard while a horde of orange-clad Gallup fans fell silent.

“Our coach (Robert Haack) told us it was going to be loud,” Ortegon said. “He told us, ‘Just have fun with it,’ and that’s what we did.”

Ortegon and sophomore Mario Ramirez had the most fun, torching the Bengals (18-11) inside much of the afternoon. Ramirez finished with 18 points and nine boards.

As a result, the seventh-seeded Warriors headed south with a championship trophy. The school’s only previous team state title came in boys soccer in 2000.

“Getting our first basketball championship and making history, we are so happy right now,” Ortegon said.

Fifth-seeded Gallup was hoping to end an even longer title wait. The school has never won a boys championship and last appeared in a final in 1938.

The fans did all they could, roaring through a back-and-forth first half and again when the Bengals trimmed a 10-point deficit to 39-36 early in the fourth quarter.

“It felt like I was back home in Gallup,” senior Nick August said. “The fans stuck with us to the end. I’m proud to say I’m a Bengal.”

But Gallup shot just 27 percent in the fourth quarter, while Santa Teresa was efficient all day. The Desert Warriors shot 53 percent for the game.

Gallup had the better of things early, repeatedly dumping the ball inside to senior post Patrick Whitman. He scored six of his 13 points as the Bengals took a 10-4 lead.

But a defensive adjustment by Haack and his staff changed the game. The Warriors started employing primarily zone defense to help with Whitman and exploited him with the quicker Ramirez.

The teams traded 3-pointers midway through the second quarter, and a post basket by Whitman tied the score at 22. But Ramirez then scored on a drive, and Ortegon’s tip-in at the halftime horn put Santa Teresa up 26-22.

The Warriors stretched it to 39-29 on a post jumper by Ortegon, but August’s three-point play sparked a 7-0 Gallup run that got the Pit rocking. A half-court trap by the Bengals forced several Santa Teresa turnovers and gave Gallup renewed hope.

“Gallup did a good job with that trap, and we didn’t handle it very well,” Haack said.

But the Bengals could not make enough shots to take advantage of the turnovers, and Santa Teresa finally put the win on ice. Ortegon scored twice inside, and Manny Zermeno buried a 3-pointer to make the score 54-41 with less than two minutes left.

August finished with 13 points, and Lionel Kinsel scored nine for Gallup.
— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal