McCurdy head coach Ernesto Espinoza stressed the importance of evaluating where his team stacks up at the state level and he will get his first opportunity to do so this weekend.
The Bobcats (4-0) are off to a perfect start to the season with wins over Escalante High School, Santa Fe Prep, Jemez Valley High School and most recently Coronado High School, who McCurdy broke down quickly in a 69-32 win Dec. 13 inside Memorial Gymnasium.
Only the opening game of the season against Escalante has been tight (47-43 in overtime), but now the Bobcats head to the Citizens Bank Tournament Thursday (12/20) through Saturday in Texico and their first test will be against Clayton High School (1-4) in the opening round.
“If we get past that one, we’ll probably see a team from Texas who plays Texico a bunch,” McCurdy head coach Ernesto Espinoza said. “It will be a tough matchup no doubt about it, but that’s what we want. We want to know where we’re at and that’s why we picked that tournament.”
Farwell High School from Texas will face off with Tucumcari High School in the first round on the same side of the bracket as the Bobcats. Other teams participating will be Tohatchi High School, Eunice High School, Mora High School and the hosts from Texico High School.
McCurdy opted for the long bus ride instead of staying close to home to play in the Ben Luján tournament hosted at Pojoaque Valley High School on the same dates.
“Those are the kind of teams will see at state, if we get into state,” Espinoza said about the Texico tournament. “In that first round down in Albuquerque, those are the teams that will be there, so we want to see where we’re at and not have any surprises once we get down there.”
There weren’t necessarily any surprises on Dec. 13 either, as the Leopards lost their second straight game by more than 35 points, this time at the hands of McCurdy.
Leading by as many as 39 points in the second half, the Bobcats coasted past the Leopards in a similar fashion as the Lady Bobcats did to the Lady Leopards on the same night.
Coronado had a tough time escaping the press defense, which led to countless turnovers and easy buckets for the Bobcats.
Ubaldo Barela led McCurdy with 16 points and fellow senior captain Kemmer Croff was right behind with 15. Point guard Ernesto Martinez had 10 as the third Bobcat in double-digits.
“I was pretty pleased with what our guys did,” Espinoza said. “We have on both offense and defense roles and I thought they did a good job executing their roles and what we’re trying to teach them. It was a good win that was under control.”
McCurdy led 6-3 with five minutes remaining in the first quarter after Coronado’s Ricardo Chacon hit a 3-point basket to settle the Leopards in. The only problem was that the Bobcats answered with a 15-2 run to end the quarter and never looked back.
Leading 30-15 at halftime, the Bobcats extended their lead to 39-17 and led 50-28 entering the fourth quarter, where they added 19 more points.
Coronado’s largest scoring quarter came in the third with 12 points and Tim Fuchs led the Leopards with 19.
Coronado lost 66-36 Dec. 15 at Rehoboth Christian High School to drop to 0-3.