The McCurdy Charter School girls basketball team was in big need of a win.
Trailing 28-27 after three quarters in the seventh-place game of the 28th annual girls Ben Luján Tournament against Dulce High School, the Lady Bobcats made it an emphasis to take control near the basket in the fourth quarter to achieve that.
McCurdy co-team-leading scorer Lorena Pacheco assisted big time, tallying seven of her eight points over the final eight minutes — making 3-of-3 free throw attempts from the line — and the Lady Bobcats stifled the Lady Hawks defensively to exit the tournament with a 40-37 victory on Dec. 21 at Ben Luján Gymnasium.
“What stuck out to me was how we talked and played on defense,” Pacheco said. “Defense is the key to winning games and when we called timeouts coach told us, ‘Defense is the key and we win with defense and we play as a team.’ They (Dulce) were getting frustrated because we were right on them, they got mad and then kind of lost it.”
After Erika Loera-Avila scored a bank shot from 13-feet out to make the score 39-34 in McCurdy’s favor with 3:16 left, Dulce would never find the bottom of the net from the field for the remainder of the game.
The Lady Hawks would only add three more points from the line and missed six field goal attempts over the final minute-and-a-half amid turnovers and silly mistakes in transition.
First-year McCurdy head coach Lucretia Williams was more than satisfied with the defensive intensity she saw from her team in an 8:30 a.m. tipoff.
“Our defense is slowly coming along and this was an early game for us,” she said with a laugh. “We did very well and we are still trying to figure out the different sets and different schematics of it, but I know our offense will come along.”
McCurdy senior Jayme Bustos matched Pacheco with eight points of her own and Megan Archuleta added six, including two buckets in the third quarter.
The Lady Hawks (1-8) built a 22-16 halftime lead behind an aggressive Chancey Vicenti, who scored five of her seven first half points from the free throw stripe.
However, Dulce’s scoring output decreased to just six points in the third quarter and could have been less if it weren’t for Jasmine Keith being fouled on a 3-point attempt from the right wing with 2.2 seconds remaining in the quarter. She made two of the three attempts to give Dulce the 28-27 lead after three quarters.
That’s when the Lady Bobcats decided to take what they thought was theirs.
“The last quarter really came down to who wanted it more,” Williams said. “I had to keep reminding them of that and empowering them because there’s good opportunities for us this season. We just have to keep consistently working to do well more often.”
McCurdy navigated its way to the seventh-place game after an opening 47-30 loss to St. Michael’s High School and a lopsided 74-31 loss to consolation champion Peñasco High School.
Bobcats
The McCurdy boys team suffered a rough weekend at the Ben Luján, losing three consecutive games to finish in eighth place.
The Bobcats’ three-day stop concluded with a 54-51 loss to Crownpoint High School in the seventh-place game on Dec 21.
The game was evenly paced as it was tied 16-16 after a quarter and 41-all at halftime, but Crownpoint’s precision from beyond the arc helped lift the Eagles in the second half.
Crownpoint made a total of seven triples for the game and six of those found their way through the net over the final two quarters. Tylon Tsosie was responsible for back-to-back 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, with the second giving Crownpoint a 49-43 lead with 4:41 remaining.
McCurdy would respond with a final effort to conduct an 8-0 run to tie the game at 49-all after a 3-pointer by Santiago Samora. Then, they would take a 51-49 lead thanks to a put-back by Josh Esquibel with 2:06 left, but Crownpoint scored the final five points — with Ohmry Secatero ’s triple from the left wing serving as the final dagger.
Nicholas Croff paced McCurdy with 12 points, Diego Delgado scored nine, Diego Borrego added eight and Markus Martinez and Samora recorded seven points each.
Prior to the seventh-place matchup with the Eagles, McCurdy was ousted in the first round on Dec. 19 by Santa Fe Indian School 59-41 behind a Braves’ 17-0 scoring run that started in the second quarter and extended into the third.
Menaul School then handed the Bobcats a 52-27 loss in the second round of the consolation side of the bracket on Dec. 20.