{"id":95335,"date":"2019-03-01T22:28:55","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T05:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-advance-to-sweet-16-with-win-over-la-junta\/"},"modified":"2019-03-01T22:28:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T05:28:55","slug":"panthers-advance-to-sweet-16-with-win-over-la-junta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-advance-to-sweet-16-with-win-over-la-junta\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers advance to Sweet 16 with win over La Junta"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ian
Ian MacLaren\/For The Journal<br><br>M-CHS senior Cordell Baer releases a shot during the third quarter of his team\u2019s 70-62 victory over La Junta on March 1.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Playing in the biggest game of their careers, members of the Montezuma-Cortez High School basketball team gave a capacity crowd exactly what it wanted as the Panthers outlasted La Junta, 70-62, on Friday.<\/p>\n

The win marked the first regionals victory in several years for M-CHS and moved the Panthers into the championship game against Centauri High School, on Saturday at 1 p.m. in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Leading the way for M-CHS during its victory over Centauri were senior Cordell Baer, who scored a team-high 19 points, and junior Teagan Whiteskunk, who chipped in 17.<\/p>\n

As important as its star players were, however, M-CHS\u2019 victory would not have been possible absent the contribution of several role players, including junior Adrian Mark, who sparked the team with five points during a 16-2 run that allowed the Panthers build a 20-9 lead by the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just playing good defense and executing on offense,\u201d Mark about the opening eight minutes. \u201cWe weren\u2019t committing any turnovers. The crowd was hyped and got our energy boosted up and got our momentum going. It was a different energy than the regular season.\u201d<\/p>\n

In spite of M-CHS\u2019 hot shooting during the first half, which included two 3-point field goals from Whiteskunk and 3-pointers by Mark, senior Michael Diaz and senior Cordell Baer, La Junta hung tough thanks to senior Zach Archuleta, who scored 11 points in the opening half.<\/p>\n

After entering the locker room at halftime with a 30-24 lead, M-CHS began the third quarter on a 14-7 run that was keyed by aggressive defense and several pretty passes by Whiteskunk that set up several Panthers players, including junior Titus Jackson, for easy transition layups.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Tough defense) is our game,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cWe can battle in the paint with Cordell (Baer) and Jens (Jorgensen), but when we\u2019re on the fast break, nobody can keep up with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although La Junta eventually cut its deficit to 54-52 after a furious 10-4 run to open the fourth quarter, M-CHS never relinquished its lead and eventually pulled away for a 70-62 victory.<\/p>\n

Free throws by Jackson and Baer after La Junta cut the Panthers lead to 65-62 with 32 seconds left in the contest sealed the victory. After the game, Whiteskunk noted his team\u2019s free throw shooting when discussing keys to the victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose late-game free throws are important to us,\u201d the Panthers\u2019 junior said. \u201cThey can decide whether we win a game or lose a game. We\u2019ve had the experience in the past of losing a game because of free throws, so we won\u2019t let that happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

With its victory, M-CHS is now one of 16 teams that are still alive in Colorado\u2019s 3A Classification. Standing between the Panthers and a regional championship is Intermountain League rival Centauri, which split games with M-CHS this season.<\/p>\n

M-CHS defeated Centauri 64-57 on Jan. 19 before losing to the Falcons 70-41 on Feb. 8. When asked about their team\u2019s game against the Falcons on March 2, M-CHS players agreed that the game would be winnable before noting that a victory over the Falcons would be significant for their school and their community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost to (Centauri) at their place, and we beat them here,\u201d Whiteskunk said. \u201cWe\u2019ve just got to want it more and play well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c(Beating Centauri) would be huge,\u201d Mark added. \u201cWe\u2019ve never been in this position before. These are the biggest games of our careers, and we just have to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

The regional championship game between the Panthers and Falcons will take place at Montezuma-Cortez High School at 1 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cordell Baer scores 19 points as M-CHS wins 70-62 in front of large crowd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[13,36,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-95335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95335","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=95335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95335"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=95335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}