{"id":28914,"date":"2024-03-02T03:42:55","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T10:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/similar-formula-lifts-mancos-girls-to-regional-victory\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:44:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:44:49","slug":"similar-formula-lifts-mancos-girls-to-regional-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/similar-formula-lifts-mancos-girls-to-regional-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Similar formula lifts Mancos girls to regional victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mancos
Mancos senior Teya Yeomans (middle) goes up for a shot in the middle of multiple Del Norte Tiger defenders in Friday's 2A regional basketball game. (Ben Bradley\/Special to the Journal)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

MANCOS \u2013 The Mancos girls basketball team have made state tournament appearances a regular feat over the past several years \u2013 which is an achievement on its own, given the program\u2019s past challenges to get out of district play.<\/p>\n

Since 2006, the Jays had qualified for the regional nine times, but still sought their first regional round victory.<\/p>\n

That streak, like so many barriers shattered by this group, is now over.<\/p>\n

Leaning on the same process that helped guide the Jays to an impressive regular season, along with the backing of a strong home crowd showing, Mancos shined on defense and counted on its top scorers to help them get past No. 25 seed Del Norte, 38-26, on Friday to move on to the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n

The early nerves of playing on their home floor in the regional round \u2013 a first for the program in their previous nine excursions into regional play \u2013 began to evaporate as the Jays (17-5) forced turnovers in the opening stages.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Mancos girls basketball team huddles before the opening tip-off of their regional game against Del Norte at MHS.
\nBen Bradley\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe wanted to treat this game just like every other one,\u201d Mancos coach Kerri Morgan said. \u201cwe\u2019re just excited to be able to play together as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mancos led 12-9 after the quarter and found the Tiger defense would be a tough customer to break down until things opened up the second half. Sophomore Aysia Mathews drained a couple midrange buckets in the third quarter, helping the Jays establish a more comfortable advantage.<\/p>\n

Leading 16-15 early in the third quarter, the Jays sustained a run on the back of Mathews\u2019 baskets, while senior Quincy Montoya buried a 3-pointer to expand the lead to 26-19 to give the Bluejays some breathing room.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter we started to lose our focus a bit in the middle of the game, we were able to really focus on defense,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cOur post defense did a really good job. Teya (Yeomans) and Aysia (Mathews) and the rest of girls did a great job keeping them from getting what they wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mancos sophomore Claire Goodwin struggled to continue her scoring tear because of foul trouble, tallying just 11 points. However, she made free throws down the stretch.<\/p>\n

Montoya scored 12 to lead all scorers, while Mathews added eight. Senior Teya Yeomans scored five to provide the complementary scoring that the Bjuejays have relied on all season.<\/p>\n

Del Norte (10-12) was led by seven points from freshman Emma Parra to go along with six points from Baylie Laymon in the losing effort.<\/p>\n

Mancos advanced to play ninth-seeded Sedgwick County in the regional finals, which will start at 11 a.m. Saturday. The Cougars (19-5) took down No. 24 Center 51-35 in the other regional semifinals matchup.<\/p>\n

A live broadcast will be available on radio station 98.7 FM KRTZ and on krtzradio.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bluejays claims first regional basketball tournament win in over 20 years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28862,"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-28914","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\/28914","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=28914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80578,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28914\/revisions\/80578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28914"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=28914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}