{"id":23570,"date":"2025-02-12T10:30:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T17:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/whited-scores-record-42-points-as-montezuma-cortez-blows-out-mancos\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:38:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:38:55","slug":"whited-scores-record-42-points-as-montezuma-cortez-blows-out-mancos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/whited-scores-record-42-points-as-montezuma-cortez-blows-out-mancos\/","title":{"rendered":"Whited scores record 42 points as Montezuma-Cortez blows out Mancos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez senior Taylor Whited drives to the hoop against Mancos junior Zoey Gilstrap on Tuesday night. Whited scored a school record 42 points in the victory over the visiting Bluejays in The Jungle. Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

As the game headed to the fourth quarter Tuesday and the Panthers firmly in control, senior Taylor Whited looked to pull herself from the contest to allow underclassmen some varsity minutes.<\/p>\n

She walked toward the bench, preparing to make her curtain call when head coach Brad Wright broke the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told her, \u2018You\u2019re one point away from the school record,\u2019\u201d said Wright, \u201cand she looked at me and said, \u2018OK, I\u2019m in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments later, Whited eclipsed the previous mark \u2013 36 points from Class of 2012 standout Sydney Bayles \u2013 and then added a couple of buckets before converting a three-point play at the foul line to close her evening with 42 points in a 77-37 victory over Mancos in The Jungle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the best feelings in the world,\u201d said Whited, \u201cI was confident \u2013 every time I shot, I felt like it was going to go in.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The final score did not reflect the battle put up by the shorthanded Bluejays, who rallied from a double-digit deficit in the first quarter to battle right in step with their 4A foes. Mancos senior Randi Lewis banked in a 3-pointer as the first quarter horn sounded to bring the visitors within 21-15.<\/p>\n

From there, Mancos head coach Julie Oliver\u2019s squad continued to chip away, closing within a bucket at 28-26 midway through the second quarter. Bluejays freshman Tinsley Aspromonte put on a clinic from the midrange, scoring 16 of her team-high 25 points before halftime.<\/p>\n

However, the Panthers reclaimed momentum in a big way, with juniors Siana Elliott and Keeley Clarke joining Whited\u2019s scoring outburst as part of 15-0 run to end the first half with a 43-26 advantage.<\/p>\n

Elliott controlled the paint for M-CHS, putting together a career-high 16-point performance, while Clarke made herself into a menace defensively, with quick hands in passing lanes to catalyze the M-CHS transition game.<\/p>\n

Whited\u2019s night opened with 10 points apiece in each of the first two quarters \u2013 an indication that something special might be in the cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy team needed me to lock in,\u201d reflected Whited after the Bluejays rallied in the first half, \u201cand we trusted each other \u2013 I\u2019m glad to be able to go out there with those girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

M-CHS (6-13, 1-7 IML) leaned on Whited\u2019s 15 points in the third quarter to put the game out of reach, leading to the exchange with her head coach as she sat on 35 points with a quarter to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that impressed me the most on a night where she (Whited) scored so many points, she also had her highest assist total of the season,\u201d reflected Wright, \u201cand so it was a very unselfish 42 points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Shaylynn Bia added to the scoring barrage with six points, joining Clarke\u2019s seven tallies to complement Whited\u2019s historic night. Lewis scored six points for Mancos while junior Caylee Moore added five.<\/p>\n

Mancos (6-11, 5-4 SJBL) heads into their final three regular season contests with their postseason fate hanging in the balance. A home contest against Ridgway on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. offers the Bluejays a chance to pursue one of the teams in front of them in the CHSAA Seeding and Selection Index.<\/p>\n

The win for M-CHS also comes at the outset of a critical stretch for the Panthers, knowing they\u2019ll need a finishing flourish to qualify for the 4A postseason. They\u2019ll host Dove Creek on Friday night at 5 p.m. in their final nonleague outing of the season before facing four league opponents to close out the regular season. Their contest against the Bulldogs will be available on local radio station 98.7 FM KRTZ and on krtzradio.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panthers top Mancos in spite of dynamic performance from Bluejays\u2019 Aspromonte<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23571,"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-23570","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\/23570","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=23570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78183,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23570\/revisions\/78183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23570"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}