Navajo Prep goes back-to-back in 3A girls basketball

Rainy Crisp is practically a rock star in the Four Corners, so when she speaks about Class 3A girls basketball, people pay attention.

The season that just concluded, she said, might have ended with any number of schools standing alone at the end, the longtime Navajo Prep coach said. West Las Vegas, for one. Robertson, Santa Fe Indian, Tohatchi. All these teams, she opined, held relatively equal ground.

And then she pointed at her head.

“It all comes down to mental toughness at the end,” she said.

Her Navajo Prep Eagles had that in droves Friday afternoon. The top-seeded Eagles were down seven early in the fourth quarter, but closed the Class 3A championship game on an 18-2 run and Navajo Prep successfully defended its state title, 52-43 over No. 2 West Las Vegas before a feisty and noisy crowd at the Pit.

“It’s been a journey, for sure,” Crisp said. “The main thing I was trying to get across to them is, enjoy this journey. We had our ups and downs, every team does, and some teams don’t bounce back from that.”

So, with the Dons in pursuit of the program’s first blue trophy, and West Las Vegas holding a 41-34 lead 20 seconds into the fourth quarter, Crisp, and her team, knew which buttons needed to be pushed, and more importantly, which buttons needed to be left alone.

“And that’s something we’ve been working on throughout the whole state tournament, is be mentally strong,” Crisp said.

Navajo Prep scored eight in a row over the next four minutes. Starting with a layup from Lailah McGary, and ending with two free throws from Leilani Wood for a 42-41 lead with 3:48 to go.

West Las Vegas briefly countered with a Kara Morgan putback, but that would prove to be the Dons’ only points in the final 7 minutes and 40 seconds. West Las Vegas missed a few easy chances along the way.

“We beat ourselves,” Dons coach Victor Ulibarri lamented.

Navajo Prep got two free throws from Shiloh Conn, then two more from Wood — who was 6-for-6 from the line in the fourth quarter — for a 46-43 lead. McGary scored from close range for a five-point lead at the 1:38 mark, and a layup by Wood pretty much sealed it as Navajo Prep led 50-43 with just 48 seconds remaining.

“It’s really important to slow ourselves down on offense, especially when we know it’s critical moments like that,” Conn said.

Navajo Prep won state for the fourth time this decade, to go with 2020, the short pandemic season of 2021, plus last year and this year.

“Every day at the beginning of the season, we were looked down on by a lot of people,” said McGary, who had five points and five rebounds. “... We’ve been looked at as if we weren’t gonna get far in state. But we didn’t let that get to us.”

Wood led Navajo Prep with 12 points and nine rebounds. Kassidy Jones added 10, Conn eight.

Friday’s game, with a crowd of about 8,000, was physical and was called that way. The teams combined for 51 free throws on 47 fouls.

Alexis Pacheco led the Dons with 16 points, but she was 6-for-21 from the field.

“They’re just a great team,” Crisp said. “And Pacheco, oh my God, she’s a great player. … That was our focus, to contain her as much as we can and not let everybody else get going, and I think the second half we did a whole lot better at that.”

Navajo Prep beats West Las Vegas to win 3A girls title: Photos