Coyotes get tourney victory over Toads
Tyler Takeda/The Madera Tribune
Madera’s J’Sean Gonezales makes a layup during Friday’s victory over Coalinga. He scored eight points with a team-high 13 rebounds and also had four steals.
The Madera Coyotes boys basketball team got scoring from seven different players to cruise to a 41-27 victory over the Coalinga Horned Toads in the Liberty Hawks Tournament.
Shovawn Gonzales was the only Coyote to reach double-figures in scoring, but four different players scored six or more points.
The Coyotes jumped out to the early lead and cruised from there, although they only scored five points in the fourth quarter Friday night at Liberty.
“I’m hoping it’s early-season growing pains,” head coach David Lozano said. “We are tying to get our senior point guard to play through traps. They are giving efforts. They want to see wins on the scoreboard.”
Stevie Estrada scored eight points to go with 11 rebounds. J’Sean Gonzales added seven points with 13 rebounds and three steals. Elias Torres added six points with four steals.
“We’re best in transition,” Lozano said. “When we can get steals, we can generate offense. We had spurts of efforts on Monday. We just couldn’t score. We need to get more basketball IQ and take better shots.”
The Coyotes jumped out to an early 8-2 lead after driving buckets from Shovawn Gonzales (twice), Torres and JoJo Pickens.
Coalinga made a layup to cut the lead to four, but Madera closed out the first quarter with a Gonzales putback, a layup off a Torres steal and a Torres layup off a Pickens steal for a 14-4 first quarter lead.
Coalinga hit a 3-pointer to open the second quarter, but J’Sean Gonzales got assists from Estrada and Pickens on layups, and Estrada turned a Gonzales steal into a layup for a 20-7 lead.
Coalinga made a pair of buckets before Extrada scored down low off a Gonzales offensive rebound.
The Horned Toads closed out the first half with a pair of buckets and trailed 22-15.
Gonzales opened the second half scoring with a 3-pointer. Pickens found Estrada for a short bucket and a 12-point lead.
After Coalinga made a layup, the Coyotes scored nine straight points, beginning with an Estrada layup off a Shovawn Gonzales assist. J’Sean Gonzales pulled down a rebound and fed down the court to Pickens for a layup.
Then, Gonzales found Eli Mireles for a 3-pointer. Torres closed the run with a pair of free throws for a 36-17 lead.
The Horned Toads closed the third quarter with a pair of 3-pointers for a 36-23 Coyote lead.
Coalinga scored the first four points of the fourth quarter to make the game interesting, trailing by nine. However, the Toads went freezing cold from the field the rest of the way, not making a shot for the final seven minutes-plus of the game.
Meanwhile, Madera did just enough with a Shovawn Gonzales bucket off an inbounds and a 3-pointer from Angel Mendoza for a 41-27 win.
