{"id":75639,"date":"2017-12-13T21:01:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T04:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-boys-overtake-dolores-early-run-away-69-45\/"},"modified":"2017-12-14T04:01:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T04:01:11","slug":"ignacio-boys-overtake-dolores-early-run-away-69-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-boys-overtake-dolores-early-run-away-69-45\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignacio boys overtake Dolores early, run away 69-45"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Nobody really needed to tell the Dolores Bears to get fired up for their Tuesday opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been looking forward to it for such a long time. It\u2019s definitely been marked on our calendar,\u201d junior Tristen Swagerty said. \u201cBut we were overthinking it too much, were overhyped and got caught up in the clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n

You really couldn\u2019t blame Dolores, though. Led by Swagerty\u2019s midair acrobatics, Dolores raced out to a 5-0 lead on 2A\/1A San Juan Basin League heavyweight Ignacio, and still held an 8-4 advantage midway through the first quarter after a surprise three-pointer by junior post Dakota Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwagerty \u2013 we always game-plan for him. He\u2019s a great player,\u201d IHS senior guard Johnny Valdez said. \u201cHe comes in with a lot of strength, a lot of tenacity to the basket, and we knew we just had to limit him, try to make the rest of the team beat us. And that\u2019s what we were able to do today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Able to give a glance back to the Dolores student section after a three-pointer with 2:58 left, Valdez capped a vital 10-0 counterstrike forcing Bears boss Larry Schwartz to call a timeout with his boys suddenly down 14-8. Momentum in the game was about to tip permanently in the Bobcats\u2019 favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve had a couple weeks to prepare for us,\u201d Schwartz said, a what-can-you-do grin on his face. \u201cI knew what was coming, but I was still expecting us to have a better showing than we did.<\/p>\n

We were averaging, like, 14 turnovers a game coming in after five games, and Ignacio got us to turn it over way too many times to be competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after Schwartz\u2019s pause in play, the visitors began displaying their precision to score points.<\/p>\n

Johnny Valdez then capped the quarter with a transition feed to senior Kai Roubideaux, giving the Cats a 22-12 lead after eight minutes. A 5-0 burst, with sophomore Ocean Hunter scoring four of those points, got Ignacio going in the second quarter. Although Dolores went into halftime getting consecutive buckets by sophomore Forrest Pejsa, Ignacio\u2019s 34-22 lead would only grow to a final 69-45 margin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came out in that zone, and we went over every zone offense we had, twice or three times, coach Christ Valdez said. \u201cWe wanted to make sure we were crisp at it, and we made several baskets in a row. Johnny, with some good middle screens, hit a couple nice shots and gave us a little edge. (Lawrence) Valdez off a ball screen and skip (pass) for a nice three \u2013 I mean, it got us in our rhythm, and they really didn\u2019t have any answer. They had to go to man-to-man.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bears hope to improve before their next meeting with Ignacio.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to improve our defense a hundred and ten percent; there\u2019s only so much offense can get you (against) a team that can\u2019t miss a three,\u201d said Swagerty, who fittingly ended the night\u2019s scoring with a basket giving him a game-high 20 points.<\/p>\n

With four of the Bobcats\u2019 eight threes, Lawrence Valdez racked up a team-best 19 points. With two threes and 10 first-quarter points, somewhat offsetting Swagerty\u2019s initial nine, Johnny Valdez finished up with 16 and Hunter 12. Senior Cole McCaw sank his two threes during Ignacio\u2019s 20-9 work in the third quarter and totaled 11 points. Roubideaux booked 10 while regularly clashing with Pejsa (four points) and Smith (ten).<\/p>\n

\u201cSome things we weren\u2019t doing, but I think our execution did pretty good and we came out with a \u2018W,\u2019\u201d Roubideaux said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had almost two whole weeks, you know, to really get in a rhythm, and tonight we executed well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn practice Coach always emphasizes five to six passes before someone can shoot,\u201d he added, \u201cand to make sure you\u2019re always cutting (to the basket), not sticking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really wanted to make a statement; we know Dolores thinks \u2013and Mancos thinks \u2013 that they can compete with us in this league, and we knew we were going to have a tough battle, going to really have to grind, and try to keep a lead,\u201d Johnny Valdez noted. \u201cWe were able to do that and it was a great game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up next, Ignacio (2-0, 2-0) will compete at the Dec. 15-16 \u201cRumble in \u2018The Jungle\u2019\u201d hosted by 3A Montezuma-Cortez. About the only aspect of Tuesday\u2019s win the coach stressed needed improving was bench play \u2013 which produced just one point in Dolores (whose reserves managed only two).<\/p>\n

The Cats will begin the tournament Friday night at 5:30 p.m. versus 3A Moab, Utah, with the Red Devils off to a 4-1 start following Tuesday night\u2019s 54-44 home win over 1A Monticello, Utah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ignacio focuses on stopping Dolores junior Tristen Swagerty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-75639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75639","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=75639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75639"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=75639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}