<\/p>\n
Mancos head coach Mallory Morgan wanted for her team to get out to a hot start early in its game against Dove Creek on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
And the Blue Jays didn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n
Junior Nicole Hess started the game with an old fashioned three-point play and then knocked down a three-pointer behind the arc.<\/p>\n
Her six-point jump-start was followed by a Jessica Gutierrez three-pointer, and then another bucket by Hess pushed the Blue Jays out to an early 11-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Hess scored 10 points in the first quarter and finished with a team-high 17, and the Blue Jays took a 24-10 lead going into half.<\/p>\n
Four points for Kris Johnson and Madilyn Hankins and two from Kiera Baughman made up the Bulldogs first half scoring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to get our offense to move,\u201d said Dove Creek head coach Angie Gatlin. \u201cWe\u2019re getting the shots; they\u2019re just not falling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pace picked up in the second half, with Gutierrez taking outlet passes and sprinting upcourt for fastbreak looks, finishing with nine second-half points.<\/p>\n
\u201cJessica reads the floor really well,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cShe knows when it is a good time to push. And that\u2019s something we work on: Don\u2019t force it if it\u2019s not there.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the transition opportunities weren\u2019t available, Gutierrez would slow down and run the offense, looking to get the ball inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t faced a lot of man-to-man defenses,\u201d Morgan explained. \u201cSo it\u2019s good for (Hess) to post up and work on that, because we\u2019re going to face it later on in the season. And for Brittney, she\u2019s got to get tough inside because she\u2019s my next big body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson canned a 25-footer at the buzzer to end the third quarter with Dove Creek trailing 36-17, and then the Blue Jays\u2019 reserves closed out the game for a 47-28 Mancos win.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy young girls got some good playing time tonight, which is what I wanted,\u201d said Morgan. \u201cEmily Cole has come a long way, and Ashley is coming along defensively for us. She may not be scoring, but defensively she\u2019s stepping up, and so is Emma Most.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hess led the Blue Jays with 17 points, Gutierrez had 15 and Brittney Peacock scored 10.<\/p>\n
Dove Creek was led by Johnson with 11, Madilyn Hankins added six and LaRissa Randolph chipped in four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hess\u2019 10 first-quarter points kick-start Blue Jays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107658","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=107658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107658"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}