The Lady Pirates played a familiar face last week as former head coach Joe Hernandez brought his Thoreau Lady Hawks team to the Port on January 8. Hernandez’s Hawks had just come off a 53-47 win over 4A Miyamura the night before.
Coach Hernandez’s former student and player, none other than our Lady Pirate first year head coach Jesi Mandagran and her team were ready for the Lady Hawks.
The Lady Pirates were in a tight race in the first quarter and finished with an 8-5 lead.
The second quarter was also a bit tight as the Pirates outscored the Hawks by four points to lead 22-15.
However, in the third and fourth quarters, the Lady Pirates rallied behind a tenacious press and were able to humble the Hawks and between forcing turnovers, strong rebounding and a fast-paced transition game they outscored the Hawks 16-2 in the third quarter and outscored them 9-4 in the fourth quarter to win 47-21.
The Lady Pirates went on to defeat Miyamura 67-32 after that game. Prior to the Thoreau game the Lady Pirates also defeated Rio Grande 65-31—-giving them a three game winning streak.
“We are evolving every day,” said GHS head coach Jesi Mandagaran of her team’s recent success.
“We capitalized on our opponent’s turnovers and worked well as a team moving the ball and low post success.”
Next up for the Lady Pirates will be Shiprock who are 4-9 on January 14 at home.
“We aim to keep evolving our post play and staying in shape,” said Mandagran of her upcoming games. “We have 3 games this week (Espanola, Gallup–we are plenty busy.”
The Lady Pirates are currently 7-8.