{"id":13429,"date":"2026-02-20T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-girls-basketball-grabs-61-33-road-win\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:37:19","slug":"panthers-girls-basketball-grabs-61-33-road-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-girls-basketball-grabs-61-33-road-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers girls basketball grabs 61-33 road win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Montezuma-Cortez's
Montezuma-Cortez's Kyndall Schmitt (23) shoots over Ignacio's Juliann Avila (11) Tuesday afternoon during 3A\/4A Intermountain League action inside IHS Gymnasium. (Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Eleven Panthers girls basketball players suited up for away action Tuesday afternoon, and eleven Panthers logged at least one point offensively as Montezuma-Cortez left Ignacio having ran away, via a 23-point fourth quarter, with an important 61-33 win beginning a late-season stretch of three winnable 3A\/4A Intermountain games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of where we need to start for (getting into) regionals,\u201d said Panthers sophomore guard Kyndall Schmitt, whose three-pointer with 1:41 left in the first quarter put M-CHS up 11-7, and the Bobcats got no closer than 11-9 via senior forward Juliann Avila\u2019s last-second put-back deuce.<\/p>\n

Starting junior forward Shoshawna Washburn and reserve sophomore guard Mia Glazner got the second quarter underway expanding the guests\u2019 lead to 15-9, and after IHS senior guard Alyssa Atencio drove hard for a layup\u2014fouled on the shot, she failed to make the bonus free throw\u2014with 6:08 left until halftime, the Panthers then went on a game-changing 7-0 run keyed by a three by reserve junior guard Abigail Baker.<\/p>\n

Schmitt\u2019s second three-ball increased Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s advantage to 27-13 late, before Ignacio (4-16 overall, 2-8 IML) closed to 27-16 going into intermission. Timing perfectly her next hit from downtown, Schmitt started the second half with another trey, and M-CHS\u2019 lead seemed to peak when a Washburn leaner in the lane made the margin 33-16.<\/p>\n

Still ahead by 15 points, 38-23, through three quarters, the Panthers (9-12 overall, 3-7 IML) picked up their pace by starting the fourth quarter on a 9-0 run\u2014keyed by Schmitt\u2019s fourth triple, coming with 6:47 remaining, and a Schmitt-assisted, short-range Baker shot with 6:11 to go.<\/p>\n

IHS head coach Travis Nanaeto used a timeout, and the \u2019Cats suddenly showed life; junior forward Aubree Lucero made two of three FTs after being fouled on a long-range attempt, then promptly swished two long-awaited 3-pointers helping bring the Lady \u2019Cats back to 53-33. But even with victory visible on a fast-approaching horizon, the Lady Panthers continued playing hard to the final buzzer.<\/p>\n

Schmitt ended up with a team-leading 12 points, while Washburn and starting freshman Raya Hall (2-2 FT) each scored eight.<\/p>\n

Seven-of-15 from the free-throw line, Atencio ended up with a game-high 13 points in defeat. Lucero (3-7 FT) totaled nine points as the \u2019Cats ended up a woeful 13-of-32 from the charity stripe; the Lady Panthers were 6-of-8.<\/p>\n

The Panthers will, predicted wintry weather permitting, next host 3A Monte Vista (11-9, 5-5 IML) at 6 p.m. Friday, then close out regular-season play on Feb. 27 when 3A Bayfield comes west for a 5:30 p.m. start.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we could go a little bit faster with our offense, a little bit more clean. Other than that, I think we\u2019re doing good,\u201d Schmitt said. \u201cWe need to get on a winning streak so that we go into playoffs very strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ignacio is slated to next welcome Alamosa (15-5, 8-2), ranked No. 8 in 4A, on Friday for a 5:30 p.m. senior night tip, and then head out to MVHS the next day to play at 2:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M-CHS leaves Ignacio behind in second quarter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,680,642,1235,846,36,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-high-school-girls-basketball","tag-high-school-sports","tag-ignacio","tag-ignacio-high-school","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\/13429","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=13429"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18972,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13429\/revisions\/18972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13429"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}