{"id":107951,"date":"2015-11-30T19:01:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T02:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-basketball-in-rebuilding-phase\/"},"modified":"2015-11-30T19:01:32","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T02:01:32","slug":"panthers-basketball-in-rebuilding-phase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-basketball-in-rebuilding-phase\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers basketball in rebuilding phase"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Daniel
Daniel Fernandez catches a pass during a Montezuma-Cortez High School basketball practice.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Second year head coach Mike Hall understands the process requires patience, but after last year\u2019s 6-15 record, he\u2019s hoping the team can improve this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were rebuilding,\u201d Hall said of last season. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re doing and we still have this year to finish, because the main core of kids that are staying are the young kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year will be rebuilding,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut we\u2019re looking very good, very promising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the Panthers graduated five players from last year\u2019s squad, including their three leading scorers, they bring back players with varsity experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs leaders, we have Luis Perry and Aron Engel,\u201d Hall said. \u201cThey\u2019re both seniors that are coming back. Aron got hurt last year, but he\u2019s coming back, and Luis Perry is also back. Their leadership and court awareness and understanding of the offense is at the top right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall also pointed to Jason Engel as a key returner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a sophomore, but his basketball intelligence is very high,\u201d he said. \u201cHe played a lot last year and got in big games and did very well in big games, so I\u2019m expecting a lot from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lacking in size, Hall expects the Panthers to play up-tempo, with pressure defense.<\/p>\n

But neither the rebuilding process nor the team\u2019s small statures diminish the Panthers\u2019 goals for the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to finish with a winning season, and we would like to win the Southwestern League,\u201d said Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main goal is to win a playoff game,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe school hasn\u2019t won a playoff game in quite a while, so we\u2019d like to win a playoff game and hopefully continue from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fernandez catches a pass during a Montezuma-Cortez High School basketball practice.Sam Green\/The Journal Second year head coach Mike Hall understands the process requires patience, but after last year\u2019s 6-15 record, he\u2019s hoping the team can improve this season. \u201cWe were rebuilding,\u201d Hall said of last season. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re doing and we still have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107951","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=107951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107951"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}