<\/p>\n
The Montezuma-Cortez basketball teams were tested at home over the weekend, with both the boys and girls squads taking on ranked opponents.<\/p>\n
The boys got their shot at Goliath on Friday night against the No. 5 ranked Alamosa Mean Moose (8-1, 2-0 Intermountain League).<\/p>\n
Jasen Engel led M-CHS with nine first-quarter points, and Coby Baer and Daniel Fernandez added 3-pointers, but Alamosa led 21-17 after one.<\/p>\n
And while Alamosa senior Ryan Brubacher owned the second quarter, scoring 11 of his team\u2019s 13 points, the Panthers hung around and trailed just one at half, 34-33.<\/p>\n
The third quarter included a Quanah Casey heat check, with the M-CHS senior knocking down two triples to put M-CHS on top 49-48 entering the final frame. But in the fourth, the Panthers fell in love with the three and missed too many free throws as Alamosa pulled away to win 75-63.<\/p>\n
Engel led M-CHS with 18 points and Fernandez added 16, and Brubacher tallied 30 points for the visiting Mean Moose.<\/p>\n
It was a tough loss for the Panthers \u2013 who hung right with the No. 5 team for 30 minutes before Alamosa pulled away in the final two \u2013 but M-CHS head coach Mike Hall was proud of his team\u2019s effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them, \u2018You\u2019re playing the team that was runner-up for the state championship last year and you guys played them to the end,\u2019\u201d Hall said. \u201cIt was (a moral victory), and I told them don\u2019t you dare hang your heads down, you guys played like you\u2019ve never played before. I was proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers bounced back on Saturday with a win over Centauri.<\/p>\n
M-CHS got excellent post play from starters Braden Keetch and Micah Hightower, as well as reserves Cordell Baer and Juan Arballo, to get good looks inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got the ball up high and Braden got a bunch of easy buckets,\u201d said Hall. \u201cAnd when Braden gets easy baskets, the team really gets going and they flow off of that and took off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keetch also threw down two dunks in the contest to get the home crowd amped up.<\/p>\n
First, he picked up a steal for a one-handed fastbreak hammer in the opening quarter. And then in the second, he broke free inside for a two-handed jam and M-CHS led 28-21 at the break.<\/p>\n
The Panthers\u2019 lead grew in the third quarter and they entered the fourth up by double digits. And although Centauri made a run in the final frame, M-CHS held on to win 50-46.<\/p>\n
Engel and Keetch each scored 12 points in the win, while Hightower added 10.<\/p>\n
After a 49-29 loss to Alamosa on Friday, the Lady Panthers got their shot at a ranked opponent on Saturday against the No. 5 Centauri Lady Falcons (10-1, 2-0 IML).<\/p>\n
M-CHS was missing a couple players due to injury and eligibility, but the Lady Panthers got a boost from sophomore Aryelle Wright, who was eligible for her first varsity contest after sitting out due to transferring.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe adds heart and the will to win,\u201d M-CHS head coach John McHenry said of Wright. \u201cI\u2019ve seen her run track and I\u2019ve seen her lay out and dive for the finish line. And on a personal note, I\u2019ve been friends with her family and I just know what she can do. So when she brings that, it makes everybody else have to step up and rise to her level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright tallied four points in the first half, as Centauri led 17-9 at the break. But she started cooking in the second.<\/p>\n
Wright scored all six of the Panthers\u2019 third-quarter points and another seven in the final frame to account for 17 of M-CHS\u2019 31 points.<\/p>\n
And although Centauri escaped with a 45-31 win, McHenry saw positives in the way his young squad competed against last year\u2019s third-place finishing team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went into the locker room and said, \u2018This wasn\u2019t a victory, but it\u2019s a moral victory,\u2019\u201d he explained. \u201cWe\u2019ve been blown out by this guy I don\u2019t know how many times, so to come within under 15 points and have him kind of sweat it a little bit \u2013 absolutely (a moral victory).\u201d<\/p>\n
The M-CHS girls (1-9, 0-2 IML) and boys (4-6, 1-1 IML) are back in action on Friday hosting Monte Vista.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Montezuma-Cortez squads challenged by ranked teams at home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-72956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72956","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=72956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72956"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=72956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}