<\/p>\n
Playing against Centauri in front of a raucous student section on Feb. 2, the Panthers clawed their way to a 64-57 victory. Sophomore Teagan Whiteskunk paced M-CHS with 15 points, senior Austin Foxworth scored 12, and senior Jasen Engel added 10.<\/p>\n The game started off close as players from M-CHS and Centauri waged a physical battle that included several bone-crushing screens and hard fouls. Midway through the quarter, Whiteskunk was knocked to the floor after a drive to the basket and later in the half, Panthers senior Mario Espinoza exchanged words with Centauri\u2019s Martin Garcia after Garcia appeared to set a moving screen.<\/p>\n M-CHS players maintained their composure despite the chippy nature of the contest, however, and after trailing 10-8 at the end of the first quarter, the team received a boost from junior Jens Jorgenson, who scored eight second-quarter points to help M-CHS pull ahead 25-24 by halftime.<\/p>\n \u201cI just try to come in and play hard,\u201d Jorgensen said. \u201cWhen I get done with (the junior varsity game), I\u2019m a little tired, but I just have to fight through and help my team.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking to maintain their momentum in the second half, M-CHS put the ball in the hands of Engel and the multi-talented senior responded by dishing out multiple assists to teammates.<\/p>\n Among Engel\u2019s most impressive passes was a no-look pass to Cordell Baer for a layup to put the Panthers ahead 29-28. Later in the quarter, Engel caught an errant inbounds pass with his left hand and fired the ball to Foxworth in the right corner for a 3-pointer to put M-CHS ahead 38-29.<\/p>\n \u201c(Centauri) put that lengthy kid on me, and anytime I would drive, they would collapse,\u201d Engel said. \u201cI told everyone to slide to the open spot, and if they collapse, I\u2019ll find you. I just trusted my team to make the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahead 49-38 to begin the fourth quarter, M-CHS began firing on all cylinders as Centauri\u2019s defense slowly wilted. A fast-break layup by Espinoza midway through the quarter stretched the Panthers\u2019 lead to 53-42 and consecutive layups by Foxworth furthered the gap to 57-42 with 4 minutes left.<\/p>\n With M-CHS leading 64-52 late in the fourth quarter, Panthers fans began to celebrate while imploring Centauri to \u201cwarm up the bus.\u201d Players high-fived on the bench as head coach Michael Hall congratulated his players on their effort.<\/p>\n Whiteskunk scored 15 points to pace M-CHS, Foxworth added 12, Engel scored 10 and Jorgensen chipped in 8.<\/p>\n Less than 24 hours after defeating Centauri, M-CHS returned to the court against Monte Vista and overcame a sluggish start in route to a 73-60 victory.<\/p>\n The Panthers led 11-9 at the end of the first quarter and found themselves tied, 27-27, at halftime. An impressive third quarter allowed the Panthers to build a 51-41 lead, however, and the team coasted to victory.<\/p>\n Now 10-7 on the season, M-CHS will prepare for a critical road matchup against Pagosa Springs, which will take place on Feb. 9 at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" M-CHS improves to 10-7 after wins over Centauri and Monte Vista<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":101427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[36,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-101426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101426"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=101426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}