Hope Christian’s massive surge overpowers SFIS

ALBUQUERQUE — Santa Fe Indian School rode a wave of emotion for 10 minutes.

Albuquerque Hope Christian fed an appetite that did not want to be denied Tuesday night.

The Lady Braves, the seventh seed in the Class AAAA State Girls Basketball Tournament, had the Lady Huskies on the run for the first 10-plus minutes of the AAAA semifinal against the No. 2 Lady Huskies. Then came soul-crushing wall of solitude in the form of the Hope defense.

For 17 minutes, 26 seconds, SFIS’s attempts to acquire a basket were denied by the taller Lady Huskies. And the upsetminded Lady Braves turned into upset minds as Hope Christian used a 36-4 run to sprint away with a 47-35 win in The Pit to advance to the AAAA semifinals against No. 3 Shiprock.

Until that point, SFIS (16-13) played with intensity and emotion, and used three 3-pointers in the first 10:27 of the game to build a 21-9 lead at the 5:33 mark.

“We couldn’t start any better,” Lady Braves head coach Lanse Carter said. “We did what we needed to do. The magic being there, then the question was how do we sustain that effort? If I had to look inwardly at myself, what was our next step, what was our next twist that could have taken it to another facet.”

There was no twist for the Lady Huskies (23-6). Terry Heisey, Hope Christian head coach, said it was just a matter of desire.

“Strategy-wise, I didn’t do anything,” Heisey said. “I just challenged the girls. I said, ‘We’ve held the last 14 teams to under [50] points. … I said, ‘We got to play better defense.’ And they stepped up to the challenge.”

Only a pair of free throws by Milan Schimmel prevented SFIS from failing to score after building its largest lead as Hope crept to within 23-19 at the break. The Lady Huskies managed to pull closer despite shooting 5-for-26 in the first half, and 0-for-7 from 3-point range.

The second half began where the first last off, as the Lady Braves went 0-for-8 from the field in the third quarter and turned the ball over eight times. Their lone bright spot was the 2-for-2 effort from Schimmel at the 2:41 mark that made it 32-25, Hope.

The tide turned decidedly toward the Lady Huskies when they hit two of their first three shots from the field — including a 3 from Hannah Valencia that cut the margin to 23-22 at 6:47 of the third.

It was the kind of shot that boosted the confidence of everyone wearing the white-and-green.

“It was big on my confidence, to keep me going,” Valencia said. “My teammates helped me with my confidence, just to keep shooting.”

When the fourth quarter rolled around, the Lady Braves’ confidence was shot. When RanDee Toya scored off the glass with 4:07 left in the game, SFIS finally put an end to its field-goal drought. Not even Heisey realized what his team had done.

“Wow,” was his expression at the stat.