<\/p>\n
Pacing the Panthers bench on a repaired right patella tendon, coach Michael Hall found himself with a tougher, mental predicament late in Saturday afternoon\u2019s game against Moab-Grand County.<\/p>\n
Rallying back from nine points down early in the fourth quarter, Montezuma-Cortez, which had lost its 11-point halftime lead in the third, pulled back to 65-63 with senior forward Austin Foxworth\u2019s second three-pointer of the quarter.<\/p>\n
Coming immediately after Grand County senior Brayden Schultz caught and converted an alley-oop layup, momentum appeared to favor M-CHS in the \u201cRumble in the Jungle\u201d finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were finding the open guy, running our offense good, finding any little openings the defense gave us,\u201d Foxworth said, \u201cand we capitalized.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHalftime, you know, we came out and we were just a little bit down,\u201d said Hall. \u201cThen the fourth quarter came around and we moved the ball better, quit turning it over, shot the ball real well \u2014 it just turned into a real good game.\u201d<\/p>\n
So good that it pressed Hall into a split-second decision even he wasn\u2019t crazy about making.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d be able to instruct his team on what to do to go ahead with a basket or prevent the Red Devils from running the clock if they rebounded an M-CHS miss. But a timeout might interrupt his team\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n
Hall called for the timeout, and the officials gave it to him just before sophomore guard Teagan Whiteskunk swished a go-ahead three off the right wing with 0:49 remaining. It didn\u2019t count.<\/p>\n
After the timeout, Montezuma-Cortez managed a tying basket, then fouled Grand County to save time. Schultz, who booked a game-high 18 points, hit one of two free throws, and Alec Williams hit two \u2014 giving him 15 points and extending Grand County\u2019s lead to 68-65 with 7.1 seconds left in the game.<\/p>\n
Panthers hustled the subsequent inbounds pass across midcourt in just two seconds and called timeout. But although Engel got an open look at a game-tying three-pointer, his buzzer-beater was just off-line.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeagan, he had a good first half,\u201d said Hall, noting the guard\u2019s first 13 points (he\u2019d burned Basalt High School for 13 in the first quarter, and 15 before halftime on Day 1 of the tourney).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good to play them again,\u201d said Whiteskunk, who scored a team-best 17 points against Grand County after dropping a team-best 22 on Basalt on Friday night. \u201cLast game (a 71-57 loss last year), we didn\u2019t come out focused. We came out focused this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played very well, came out ready to go,\u201d Hall agreed.<\/p>\n
Grand County also came ready to play.<\/p>\n
Grand County senior Masen Ward received the opening tip and hustled it in for a layup seconds into the championship contest. Whiteskunk and senior guard Obed Simental answered immediately, each nailing a three and setting the tone of the game. Senior reserve guard Kolby Waltman also hit a three-pointer, and M-CHS (3-3, 0-0 3A Intermountain) led 17-15 after eight minutes.<\/p>\n
The Red Devils (6-1, 0-0 UHSAA 3A Region 15) managed to re-tie at 21-21 via a Schultz trey, but two Whiteskunk free throws with 5:27 left in the second quarter triggered a 17-6 closing rush in which Grand County junior Tyson Horton was hit with a technical foul.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe attacked more and just played our game, our regular game,\u201d said Whiteskunk.<\/p>\n
Williams, though, began the third quarter with a three-pointer, and followed it up with a score to cut the M-CHS lead to just 38-37. Junior center Cameron Hoppensteadt, kept in check during the first half by Panthers Jasen Engel (15 points) and Cordell Baer (11 points), then gave Grand County the lead with a basket inside.<\/p>\n
With 1:46 left, Hoppensteadt cleaned up a Ward miss from outside, drew a foul on Waltman, and converted the free throw to increase Grand County lead to 49-44. The quarter ended with Schultz crashing through the M-CHS defense for a hard layup and seven-point lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, we just calmed down and started playing the game of basketball,\u201d Schultz said, explaining Grand County\u2019s 24-point charge in the third-quarter. \u201cJust started breaking down their zone and playing as a team instead of just driving and turning the ball over.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, our team\u2019s always been a team that battles,\u201d said Williams, alluding also to Grand County\u2019s comeback, 56-48 win over Ignacio on Friday night. \u201cWe always have problems coming out hot early, but what we do best is stick together and battle strong \u2013 really try to finish the game harder than we started.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ward finished with eight points, Hoppensteadt seven and senior Josh Jones five for the Red Devils. Foxworth\u2019s 10 points gave Hall four players in double figures. Waltman chipped in seven, but Simental was held to just three after scoring nine on Friday in the Panthers\u2019 78-58 rout of Basalt.<\/p>\n
Devastating near the basket, Engel piled up 21 points against Basalt \u2014 trailing only Whiteskunk and Basalt senior guard Justin Henderson (24 points) for in the game. Foxworth registered 16 and Baer six before fouling out with 4:12 left in the fourth.<\/p>\n
In Saturday\u2019s third-place game, Ignacio High School had four players with 10 or more points as it blasted Basalt 81-52. The win took Ignacio to 3-1 overall, and 2-0 in the 2A\/1A San Juan Basin League. Basalt went to 1-6 overall, and is 0-0 in the 3A Western Slope League.<\/p>\n
Montezuma-Cortez next competes on Jan. 5 in the Four Corners Tournament in Bayfield.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got Ignacio and Durango,\u201d said Hall, \u201cand that\u2019s always a big deal for the boys. So I think they\u2019ll be ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, the boys are real positive right now, and they\u2019re playing very well,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey haven\u2019t played basketball at this caliber for a while, so I\u2019m really pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was reposted on Dec. 19 to report that Jasen Engel took the final shot.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Montezuma-Cortez beats Basalt, loses to Moab in \u2018Rumble in the Jungle\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102391,"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-102390","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\/102390","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=102390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102390"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=102390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}