diff --git a/pkg/tokenizers/sentencepiece/internal/sentencepiece/sentencepiece.go b/pkg/tokenizers/sentencepiece/internal/sentencepiece/sentencepiece.go
index fd681ca..36bab23 100644
--- a/pkg/tokenizers/sentencepiece/internal/sentencepiece/sentencepiece.go
+++ b/pkg/tokenizers/sentencepiece/internal/sentencepiece/sentencepiece.go
@@ -29,23 +29,23 @@ type trieNode struct {
 	score    float32
 	index    int32
 	end      bool
-	children map[rune]trieNode
+	children map[rune]*trieNode
 }
 
-func newTrieNode(text string, level int) trieNode {
-	return trieNode{
+func newTrieNode(text string, level int) *trieNode {
+	return &trieNode{
 		text:     text,
 		level:    level,
 		score:    0.0,
 		index:    0,
 		end:      false,
-		children: make(map[rune]trieNode),
+		children: make(map[rune]*trieNode),
 	}
 }
 
 // Sentencepiece holds the model
 type Sentencepiece struct {
-	root         trieNode
+	root         *trieNode
 	lowercase    bool
 	unknown      int32
 	controlWords map[string]int32
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ func (s *Sentencepiece) TokenizeToIDs(text string) []int32 {
 func (s *Sentencepiece) insert(word string, score float32, index int32) {
 	_, size := utf8.DecodeLastRuneInString(word)
 	charCount := len(word)
-	node := &s.root
+	node := s.root
 	for i, r := range word {
 		text := node.text
 		cnode, ok := node.children[r]
@@ -124,24 +124,22 @@ func (s *Sentencepiece) insert(word string, score float32, index int32) {
 			cnode.index = index
 		}
 		node.children[r] = cnode
-		node = &cnode
+		node = cnode
 	}
 }
 
-func (s *Sentencepiece) commonPrefixSearch(runes []rune) []trieNode {
-	output := make([]trieNode, 0, len(runes))
-	node := &s.root
+func (s *Sentencepiece) commonPrefixSearch(runes []rune, cb func(*trieNode)) {
+	node := s.root
 	for _, r := range runes {
 		cnode, ok := node.children[r]
 		if !ok {
 			break
 		}
 		if cnode.end {
-			output = append(output, cnode)
+			cb(cnode)
 		}
-		node = &cnode
+		node = cnode
 	}
-	return output
 }
 
 func (s *Sentencepiece) decodeBackwards(slices []slice) []slice {
@@ -166,15 +164,14 @@ func (s *Sentencepiece) decodeForwardToken(runes []rune) []slice {
 	slices := s.initSlices(len(runes) + 1)
 	scores[0] = 0.0
 	for i := range runes {
-		matches := s.commonPrefixSearch(runes[i:])
-		for _, node := range matches {
+		s.commonPrefixSearch(runes[i:], func(node *trieNode) {
 			localScore := scores[i] + node.score
 			charEnd := i + node.level
 			if localScore > scores[charEnd] {
 				slices[charEnd] = slice{score: localScore, index: node.index, start: i, end: charEnd}
 				scores[charEnd] = localScore
 			}
-		}
+		})
 		if scores[i+1] <= minScore {
 			slices[i+1] = slice{score: minScore, index: s.unknown, start: i, end: i + 1}
 			scores[i+1] = 0.0