Broncos come back to beat Coronado in Florence tourney

The Broncos defeated American Leadership Academy-Anthem South 78-18 in their first game, and then managed to come from behind, and held on to beat Coronado 57-52.

Poston Butte trailed by one point in the third quarter after Dutch Martinez Jr. got the bucket and nailed his free throw after drawing the foul.

Coronado had the ball on their half of the court as the Broncos were aggressively guarding the Dons, trying to force a turnover. Poston Butte succeeded in getting the ball back as Coronado’s Jalen Patterson received a technical and was thrown out of the game.

Andre Thomas went to the line and hit three of his four shots to give Poston Butte the 30-28 lead.

“I told them that we needed to stop the big guy, but we didn’t,” Poston Butte head coach Rob Walker said of trying to stop Coronado’s Brandon Walker. “I mean’s he good. But when (Patterson) got the technical and was out of the game, that sort of took them out because they didn’t have that one-two punch. So we really focused on fronting (Walker); we did a good job in the paint on him, we just didn’t do a good job covering him on the perimeter.”

The Dons managed to tie the game with a bucket by Nolan Eifler who also drew a foul, but was unable to knock down the free throw. Brandon Walker then gave Coronado the lead, but Connor Lopez quickly responded for the Broncos and tied the game at 32.

Lopez later nailed a three-pointer as Poston Butte closed out the quarter on 9-0 run — and that run extended into the final quarter as the Broncos put up 19 points while the Dons only managed two points.

Lopez posted a double-double for the Broncos with 19 points and 14 rebounds. Thomas added 17 points.

Brandon Walker’s three-pointer stopped the bleeding for Coronado and sparked a small comeback for the Dons.

The Broncos struggled to get their shots to fall while the Dons began knocking them down from beyond the arc. After Brandon Walker’s three, Coronado hit three more from deep as they went on a 15-6 run. Brandon Walker led all scorers with 28 points.

“We played Coronado three times this summer and each game was by one point,” Rob Walker said. “So, it was like the same thing; we knew it was going to be a close game.”

The Dons were down by five with 22 seconds left in the game, when Amare Brown went in for the quick layup.

Brandon Hutson got the steal on Poston Butte’s inbounds pass and attempted to charge his way into the paint, knocking down Lopez, and was called for the offensive foul with four seconds left.

“That charge was huge,” Rob Walker said. “(Lopez) does a lot of good things, he’s not always going to score the most points but he’s always going to do something like that. His presence is needed at the end of the game and that was a heads up, smart move.”

On the next inbounds pass, the Broncos got the ball to Thomas, who was fouled, and hit his two shots to all but end the game with two seconds left.

Coronado led from the start of the game all the way up to the third quarter, when Patterson was thrown out.

Poston Butte was scoreless for nearly half of the first eight-minute quarter in the tournament game.

“We’ve struggled a little bit,” Rob Walker said. “We doubled our win total today; we had one win coming in here so I think things are getting better. We’re making improvements.”

The Broncos return to action as they start the day at 11 a.m. against Thatcher and then play Globe at 2 p.m. for the second day of the Eddie Martinez Invitational.