{"id":95759,"date":"2019-02-04T13:05:41","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T20:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lady-panthers-shine-in-win-over-bayfield\/"},"modified":"2019-02-04T13:05:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T20:05:41","slug":"lady-panthers-shine-in-win-over-bayfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lady-panthers-shine-in-win-over-bayfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Panthers shine in win over Bayfield"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Slowly but surely, the Montezuma-Cortez High School girls basketball team is learning to win against Intermountain League competition.<\/p>\n

The Lady Panthers\u2019 latest league victory came at home on Feb. 1, when the team defeated Bayfield, 48-29. The win was especially gratifying given that M-CHS lost to the Wolverines, 53-47 earlier this season.<\/p>\n

Among the keys to M-CHS\u2019 victory was a defensive performance that has eluded the Lady Panthers\u2019 in recent seasons. Highlighting that performance was a third quarter during which Bayfield failed to score and M-CHS expanded a 21-17 halftime lead into a 30-17 advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur pressure defense was really tough against them,\u201d Lady Panthers\u2019 head coach Tim Robinson said. \u201cOur bigs were actually physical and got boards. That was the difference in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also playing a key role in M-CHS\u2019 victory was the inspired play of Malia Begay, who scored a team-high 11 points. The junior\u2019s most impressive sequence came during the first quarter when she scored two breakaway layups and hit a long jump shot from the right wing to give her team a 14-9 advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy approach tonight was just to push the ball and look for my teammates and have confidence in them,\u201d Begay said. \u201cWe did a great job of communicating tonight, and we all played as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining Begay as contributors on the offensive end were sophomore Paige Yarbrough, who scored 9 points, and junior Presley Frost, who scored eight. Six of Frost\u2019s points came in the fourth quarter and proved key in shutting down a potential Bayfield comeback.<\/p>\n

As M-CHS pulled away during the second half, fans roared voiced their approval through consistent chants and cheers, and at times, the noise level in the gym seemed deafening. Players took notice, and after the game, Ayanna Silas praised her team\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty intense,\u201d the senior said. \u201cI\u2019ve never had a big crowd like this to play with. It was loud, and it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day after squaring off against Bayfield, the Lady Panthers traveled to Alamosa to face off against one of the Intermountain League\u2019s teams and lost, 63-21. With the loss, M-CHS\u2019 record dropped to 6-9 overall and 2-6 in the IML.<\/p>\n

In spite of its losing record however, M-CHS has played with increased confidence and has won three of its last five games. Robinson noted his team\u2019s improved play and emphasized that M-CHS is a program on the rise.<\/p>\n

Being a first-year coach, (our players) are starting to buy into the system,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cWe are holding our composure, and we\u2019re not turning the ball over. When you do that, you\u2019re going to win games. I think we\u2019re on the right path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up for the Lady Panthers will be a road matchup against Centauri on Feb. 8, which will be followed by a road contest against Monte Vista on Feb. 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

scores 11 points as M-CHS girls basketball team picks up league victory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[36,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-95759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","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\/95759","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=95759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95759"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=95759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}