ALBUQUERQUE – The title game of the Eagle Bracket at the 13th Annual Striking Eagle Native American Invitational was decided in the last four minutes of the contest.
The Bosque Bobcats (8-2) used a 10-0 run to pull away from the Cuba Rams for the championship title as Bosque secured a 50-40 win on Saturday night at Johnson Gym on the UNM campus in Albuquerque.
“We had a breakdown, and that cost us,” said Cuba coach Rey Cordova, whose team dropped to 5-7 overall. “It was a little too late to catch up, but I believe we have a lot to look forward to.
“The guys are still young,” he added. “We need a little bit of work on a couple of thing, and the thing is we need to learn how to finish the game.”
Bosque, which came up short in last year’s Eagle bracket to Santa Fe Indian School, struggled to connect with its shot the entire night as Cuba stayed within striking distance.
“We really couldn’t get going,” Bosque coach Clifton Davidson said. “This is a tough place to shoot the ball. We didn’t shoot very well from the 3, which is normally something that we do very well.”
In the opening half, the Bosque coach figured his team were 3-of-19 from beyond the 3-point arc. Nonetheless, the Bobcats continued to shoot from long range, and they cashed in with a pair 3s from junior Jordan Kruft that spearheaded that late run.
“We were finally able to hit some, to kind of extend the lead a little bit,” said Davidson, who was named the tournament’s coach of the year.
“That was a total surprise,” Davidson said of his award. “That’s something that I didn’t expected to happen here, but I appreciate it a lot.”
And although the Bobcats struggled offensively, Bosque played solid defense the entire game. The problem was they couldn’t convert.
“That is what we talked about to these guys,” Davidson said. “We were getting the turnovers and we were getting steals, and we did the things we wanted, but we weren’t converting offensively.”
Kruft led all scorers with 13 points, which included three treys. His teammates Luca Kalishman and Oliver Tumolo added 10 each.
For Cuba, senior forward Delmar Whitehorse led the Rams with 10 points while juniors Dylan Sandoval and LaDanian Wilson added eight points apiece.
The Cordova-coached team trailed by as much as 10 points late in the third, but the Rams rallied with an 8-0 run to end the quarter with Sandoval scoring five points to close within 34-32 heading into the fourth.
Cuba tied the game when junior guard Marcos Casaus converted a steal into a contested layup with 6:26 left in the fourth.
But the Bobcats took control of the game with Kruft scoring eight straight points as Cuba did not recover.
The two district opponents will meet again on Jan. 28 in Cuba and Feb. 13 at Bosque. In addition to the Rams, Bosque also played district rival East Mountain at the SENAI tournament with the Bobcats winning 48-35.
“They were both tough games, and close games all the way through,” Davidson said. “We just played a little bit better in the fourth quarter in both of those games to get the win.”
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