<\/p>\n
The Mancos Blue Jays used a 24-12 third-quarter run to pull away from the Dove Creek Bulldogs on Tuesday in a 72-65 win.<\/p>\n
Andrew Christensen scored all 10 of the Blue Jays\u2019 first-quarter points, and Ro Paschal scored eight in the second, but Dove Creek pounded the ball inside and went into halftime with a 26-25 lead.<\/p>\n
Scott Gatlin had six first-half points in the paint, and Beau Hemphill added five, while point guard Jordan Ernst attacked the basket and backed down defender Adrian Hernandez, using his size advantage on isolations to score nine in the first half.<\/p>\n
\u201cOffensively, we were wanting to get it in the paint and use some of our bigger guys,\u201d said Dove Creek head coach Ty Gray. \u201cOur outside shooting has been struggling a bit so we didn\u2019t want to live out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mancos started the third quarter in a 1-3-1 zone, then mixed in a 3-2 zone and 2-3 zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust something different,\u201d Mancos coach Rodney Cox said. \u201cThey get in a pattern, and somebody gets hot \u2026 we just try to switch it up to make them make different decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The switches created Dove Creek turnovers, as Gray said the Bulldogs were unable to find a rhythm, and the Blue Jays made a point to push the tempo and get fastbreak points in the second half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was our plan from the start,\u201d Cox said. \u201cWe\u2019re a bunch of cross-country runners. We\u2019re in shape, we can run all day, and we need to take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have liked it slowed down a little bit more,\u201d Gray said. \u201cIt was just that we had some turnovers that kept happening up at the top of the key. Bad passes that turned into some quick easy baskets for them. So that definitely didn\u2019t favor us at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they weren\u2019t scoring in transition, Mancos got the ball to its high post, which resulted in skip-passes from Paschal and Andrew Plunkett for open three-pointers on three occasions. Plunkett also dropped in a three in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just trying to get our big guys some looks inside,\u201d Cox said. \u201cThe only touches they really got in the first half were ones they earned on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outscoring the Bulldogs 24-12 in the third, Mancos entered the fourth with a 49-38 lead.<\/p>\n
Dove Creek narrowed the gap to five early, but it jumped back to as much as 14 before a Dove Creek run narrowed it to 67-62 with 33 seconds left.<\/p>\n
Mancos free throws down the stretch kept them on top, and a three-pointer at the buzzer by Kyle Schultz narrowed the margin, with the Blue Jays holding on, 72-65.<\/p>\n
Christensen led the Blue Jays with 23 points, Paschal scored 14, and Hernandez and Andrew Plunkett each added 13.<\/p>\n
Ernst was the Bulldogs\u2019 high scorer with 17, Gatlin chipped in 13, Hemphill scored 11 and Ryan Delano added 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christensen scores 10 of his game-high 23 points in first quarter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107661,"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-107660","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\/107660","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=107660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107660"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}