{"id":90815,"date":"2020-01-12T01:57:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-12T01:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-roars-back-to-beat-ignacio-to-win-southwest-classic\/"},"modified":"2020-01-12T01:57:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-12T01:57:23","slug":"montezuma-cortez-roars-back-to-beat-ignacio-to-win-southwest-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-roars-back-to-beat-ignacio-to-win-southwest-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez roars back to beat Ignacio to win Southwest Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n

Heading into the Southwest Classic basketball tournament, few would have predicted Montezuma-Cortez High School sophomore John Thomas Carver would emerge as the hero of the two-day event.<\/p>\n

Sports have a wonderful tendency to deliver the unexpected. Thomas Carver knocked down a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1 minute, 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter to help his team defeat previously undefeated Ignacio 70-66 on Saturday, and Thomas Carver forever etched his name into this season\u2019s lore.<\/p>\n

His shot came shortly after an M-CHS timeout and turned a 66-64 deficit into a 67-66 lead. Prior to the big bucket, the Panthers had not led since senior Andrew Wood knocked down a free throw early in the first quarter to put his team ahead 1-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know everybody has faith in me, and I was feeling it,\u201d Thomas Carver said. \u201cI told (M-CHS head coach Michael Hall) I would knock down the shot, and he gave it to me, and I stepped up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall drew up the play that freed Thomas Carver during the timeout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a big shot, especially for a sophomore to hit,\u201d said Hall. \u201c(Thomas Carver) comes in off the bench, and he hadn\u2019t played a whole lot. He\u2019s a good shooter, and we set that play up for him\u2026knowing what was going to happen. He knocks down that shot and changes the whole outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Thomas Carver\u2019s shot served as the unforgettable moment of the back-and-forth contest between the Panthers and Bobcats, the sophomore\u2019s clutch bucket would not have been possible absent an impressive performance from M-CHS senior Adrian Mark, who scored all 17 of his points in the second half.<\/p>\n

Knocking down an array of jump shots from multiple positions on the floor and penetrating the lane almost at will, Mark\u2019s scoring outburst allowed the Panthers to overcome a 40-30 halftime deficit and a 53-45 deficit entering the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201c(My approach) was to just play smart and play as a team and keep on moving the ball, find the open shots and execute when we had a chance to,\u201d Mark said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been playing together since we were little, so we always know how to play together. We\u2019re a bunch of strong-headed kids that never want to give up and never want to lose, so I guess that plays a factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to Mark\u2019s second-half explosion and Thomas Carver\u2019s clutch shot, the contest was defined by Ignacio\u2019s pinpoint shooting, which yielded seven 3-point field goals in the first half and 11 3-point field goals in the game.<\/p>\n

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez High School\u2019s Adrian Mark goes up for a shot against Ignacio in the Championship game of the Southwest Classic on Saturday in Cortez.<\/span>Joel Priest\/For the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Draining four of those 3-pointers and scoring 18 of his team-high 21 points in the first half was Ignacio junior Bryce Finn, whose ability to mix post ups on the low block with deft shooting from the outside gave the Panthers fits during the first 16 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe (were thinking) that we gotta play (defense) and try to stop them,\u201d Mark said when asked about Ignacio\u2019s hot shooting. \u201cWe wanted to limit their shots from the perimeter and play defense as best we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief among the key players on the defensive end for the Panthers was senior Titus Jackson, who came up with three steals during an 11-0 M-CHS run during the second quarter that cut the Bobcats\u2019 lead from 32-17 to 32-28 before the Bobcats closed the half on an 8-2 run and carried a 40-30 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n

Knowing they would need more offense in the second half if they hoped to overcome their 10-point deficit, the Panthers leaned heavily on Jackson and senior Teagan Whiteskunk, who combined to score eight of their team\u2019s 15 points in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Both of M-CHS\u2019 leading scorers, Jackson and Whiteskunk, fouled out in the fourth quarter, however, which set the stage for Mark and Thomas Carver to step up down the stretch.<\/p>\n

\"Ignacio
Ignacio High School\u2019s Bryce Finn knocks down a 3-pointer as Bird Red watches in the background against Montezuma-Cortez during the championship game of the Southwest Classic on Saturday in Cortez.<\/span>Joel Priest\/For the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Jackson led the way offensively for the Panthers with 20 points. Mark scored 17 points and Whiteskunk chipped in 16. Other than Finn, Ignacio was led by Gabe Tucson, who scored 12 points, and Ocean Hunter, who chipped in 10 before he fouled out.<\/p>\n

Now 5-3 on the season and riding a two-game winning streak, M-CHS will kick off Intermountain League play when it hits the road to play Pagosa Springs on Friday, and they will return home for a game against Bayfield (1-7) on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Ignacio, which is now 5-1 on the season, will play its next game at home against Dolores on Friday before squaring off against Mancos on Jan. 21.<\/p>\n

If Saturday\u2019s big win against Ignacio was any indication, the Panthers appear to be getting hot at the right time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gotta take momentum into league now,\u201d Hall said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got Pagosa on Friday night at their place, and we have to keep this momentum up because Pagosa is a tough team. Bayfield comes here on Saturday, and you can\u2019t put your head down on them because they can rattle off some points real quick. We just have to carry this momentum and keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carver knocks down clutch 3-pointer for Panthers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,13,28,846,36,29,427],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-ignacio-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter","tag-prep-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90815","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=90815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90815"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}