Despite losing three of their last four games, coach Sara Sue Onley isn’t worried about her No. 5 Magdalena Steers (21-7, 9-1) as they enter the Class A state girls basketball tournament against No. 12 To’hajiilee (17-9, 7-1) at home on Friday.

“I think we were mentally and physically fatigued at the end of the season. We had a lot of big games towards the very end that I think just caught up with us,” Olney said. “But the good part about it is that we were only losing games by three and four, so we have lots of fixable things.”

The Steers were on a 12-game winning streak before suffering a 51-48 loss at Cliff. A 38-37 win over Quemado followed before two losses at home, 31-28 to Cliff and 36-32 to Quemado.

“We got away from what we have been doing, and we needed to find ourselves again,” senior Aliza Apache said. “We needed a reset.”

What was the solution?

“We had a sleepover as a team, and everybody showed up everybody had a good time. We had a little shoot-around practice today before the boys’ game since we didn’t practice on Friday. We needed to get back on the same page,” Olney said, “Now we have our selection show party tomorrow, and we’ll wait and see what happens.”

What happened was a home game against To’hajiilee at 6 p.m. on Friday, and the Steers have gone from being a team that sneaked into the state tournament to one with a legitimate shot at winning a state title.

That’s a big step for the Steers, considering Onley’s most significant goals this season were establishing a winning record, taking the district title, and getting past the first round of the state tournament.

Russell Huffman, El Defensor Chieftain Asst. Editor