In front of some 3,000 raucous hoops junkies at Española Valley High School, the top seeded Mesa Vista girls basketball team put a finishing touch on the Northern Rio Grande Tournament with a resounding win over No. 2 Mora in the championship game.
“It went good,” Trojans freshman point guard Aaliyah Boies said. “We went in and were focused and we didn’t take them for granted because we knew they were going to be tough to beat. But once the ball went in the air we knew we could get them.”
Get them is exactly what Mesa Vista (13-2) did Saturday night, winning handily, 68-51.
“It was intense,” she said. “A lot of people. It was loud. The crowd was into it. It got us motivated. We wanted to get the ball back so they could cheer for us again.”
Boies scored a game-high 26 points, while junior Aubrey Maestas had 19 points, including 15 in the second half.
“These girls, they showed me a whole different side of themselves,” said coach Jesse Boies, who collected his 100th victory with the win. “We put them through the fire in December, had them go against all the top teams in southern Colorado, New Mexico and Southern New Mexico. They found their inner dog. The inner channel where they need to be.”
The team is maturing right before his eyes, he said.
“They’re realizing what it takes to go all the way to the end,” Jesse Boies said. “You take it game by game and never take anybody loosely. Everyone here is going for you and you’ve got to give it your all every game, They’re learning that. They showed a different side of themselves. They were tough all weekend. They never lost their composure, they thrived off of it. It’s all coming together.”
The win capped a big tournament run for the Lady Trojans, who opened the NRG by beating Escalante 59-34 Thursday, followed by a 62-32 win over Questa on Friday.
“We weren’t pushed to the limits like we were in the last three or four years,” Jesse Boies said. “Mora pushed us for awhile, but these girls, we’re built for this, We’re young. They taken on assignments and know what they’ve got to do. We don’t feel sorry for ourselves when something goes wrong, we just get right back at it. We made it a good weekend where there were not any close games. They worked their butts off.”
Mesa Vista got out to a 23-12 lead after the first quarter, with Aaliyah Boies scoring 13 of her points, but the Rangerettes cut it to 34-29 by halftime behind their top player, Arianna Martinez, who scored 12 points in the second quarter.
But the Lady Trojans held Martinez, who averages 20.3 points per game, scoreless in the second half.
And that was by design, Jesse Boies said.
“We pressed and did our regular thing in the first half and got them a little tired, got their legs a little tired,” he said. “Then in the second half, we went into a half-court defense and focused on them once they crossed half court. We didn’t give the guards any room to penetrate. We shut off all the playmaking (Martinez) was able to do usually and made other girls try to beat us.”
Then the lead ballooned to 53-36 at the end of the third quarter and by then it was just a matter of running out the clock and collecting the championship trophy.
“It was a very important win,” Aaliyah Boies said. “It helped us see where we were in our district. It helped us show where we’re at so it was a pretty good win.”
But, Jesse Boies said, the Lady Trojans cannot sit back and rest on their laurels because this just further paints the bulls eye on their backs.
“Northern Rio Grande is a great tournament, but this is not the championship we’re looking for,” he said. “This was a great thing, a beautiful win. But we have to be prepared a little more because districts are coming up and every team is very good, especially at their place.”