{"id":13757,"date":"2026-01-29T01:15:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-beats-ignacio-to-continue-league-dominance\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:41:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:41:01","slug":"montezuma-cortez-beats-ignacio-to-continue-league-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-beats-ignacio-to-continue-league-dominance\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez beats Ignacio to continue league dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez senior Wyatt Oliver splits a pair of Bobcats, including IHS senior Rance Rathjen, on his way to the basket in a contest between the Panthers and Ignacio in The Jungle on Tuesday night. Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

CORTEZ \u2013 Through 15 contests, there\u2019s very little that the Panthers haven\u2019t seen.<\/p>\n

M\u2011CHS head coach Mike Hall\u2019s opponents have thrown everything at the Panthers to slow their high\u2011flying attack, with little success. And no one on the Western Slope has found an answer for their relentless defensive pressure.<\/p>\n

Ignacio became the latest team to leave the Jungle puzzled after the Panthers rolled to a wire\u2011to\u2011wire 80\u201325 win Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

The Bobcats entered with a plan: post standout wing Trace Crane to face\u2011guard Panthers leading scorer Trey Hall in hopes of disrupting the dynamic junior. The strategy limited Hall to two first\u2011half field goals, but containing the rest of the Panthers proved just as difficult.<\/p>\n

Enter senior Wyatt Oliver.<\/p>\n

The sturdy defender and rebounder delivered his best offensive performance yet, hitting three of his four three\u2011pointers during a blistering first\u2011half stretch. Oliver finished with a career\u2011high 16 points \u2014 his first double\u2011figure scoring outing in varsity play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that we can get hot at any time \u2013 tonight was Wyatt\u2019s night,\u201d said Oliver\u2019s classmate Trace Hartsoe. \u201cWhen they tried to take away Trey\u2019s chances, we just all step up and help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver\u2019s emergence reflects the Panthers\u2019 next\u2011man\u2011up mentality, which left Ignacio scrambling to adjust. Meanwhile, sophomore Ah\u2011dae Lang continued his standout season, scoring off the dribble and from the perimeter on his way to a game\u2011high 20 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep up the intensity in practice, because we don\u2019t know who we\u2019re going to face \u2013 but we know we\u2019re going to do our best to deal with it,\u201d Hartsoe said of M\u2011CHS\u2019 preparation for Ignacio\u2019s defensive look.<\/p>\n

Crane finished with eight points \u2014 half his season average \u2014 and after Stoney WhiteThunder\u2011Lucero hit a three to cut the Panthers\u2019 lead to 15\u20138 early in the second quarter, M\u2011CHS (15\u20110, 4\u20110 4A\/3A IML) tightened up and never let the Bobcats get closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe struggled a bit out of the gate, but we came out of the third quarter strong,\u201d Hartsoe said. \u201cWe have the mindset of \u2018we haven\u2019t won the game yet\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u2011CHS led 36\u201317 at halftime, then held Ignacio to just four points in each of the final two quarters to secure the program\u2019s sixth straight win in the series.<\/p>\n

Despite Crane\u2019s defensive focus, Hall still reached 16 points to match Oliver. Junior Asher Bennetts added 11 points, and Hartsoe finished with six.<\/p>\n

Ignacio (7\u20117, 0\u20114 4A\/3A IML) looks to rebound as it heads to Alamosa on Friday before hosting Monte Vista on Saturday. The Panthers begin a four\u2011game road swing with trips to Monte Vista and Bayfield this weekend as they wrap up the first rotation of the IML\u2019s double round\u2011robin schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suffocating defense from M-CHS holds Ignacio to eight field goals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757","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=13757"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20679,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions\/20679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13757"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}