Down by nine at halftime, against the defending state champion, the Escalante Lady Lobos still held no fear.
“I was like, ‘It’s only nine,’” senior Emma Maestas said. “That’s five baskets. One at a time.”
And they rallied right back to take the lead, and grab a win. A defensive adjustment to bring more pressure and trap in the halfcourt marked a big turnaround.
“I always tell the girls, we can never have an off night on defense, because defense is just effort,” Escalante coach Bryan Gonzales said. “In the second half, that’s probably the best defense I’ve seen them play all year. Sometimes, it looked like we had seven on the court.”
A 36-16 second half, with great defensive play and hot shooting, led No. 1 seed Escalante to a 53-42 win over No. 9 Clayton in the state basketball quarterfinals at the Rio Rancho Events Center on Tuesday. The Lady Lobos, led by senior stars, will play No. 4 Capitan in the semifinal on Thursday.
“At halftime, we made some adjustments … and it paid off,” Gonzales said. “And they really stepped it up. The energy and the effort on defense is what really changed it for us.”
Brycelyn Martinez led Escalante with 19 points and 11 rebounds (including 9-for-10 free-throw shooting). Cipriana Garcia had seven points, all in the fourth quarter, while Maestas added 15 including a big pair of 3-pointers in the third quarter that changed the outlook from down five to up one, and the game was never the same afterward.
“Every point, it just gives us more and more energy and more momentum,” Maestas said. “And we just keep going and going until we finish.”
Escalante’s offense was marked by strong ball movement, evidenced by 16 assists on their 19 made baskets while giving the ball away just six times the whole game. Throughout the season, the team has worked hard to learn and adapt to first-year coach Gonzales’ new system, and down the stretch in the season they have perfected it.
The Lady Lobos scored the first three points, and held Clayton scoreless for the first few minutes, but then the Yellowjackets took over. They led by four points at the end of the first quarter, and 26-17 at halftime. And they scored first in the third quarter to take an 11-point lead.
In the first half, the Yellowjackets outrebounded Escalante 24-11, including nine offensive rebounds. They fixed that problem in the second half, winning the battle 21-17.
Escalante grabbed the momentum with an adjustment to a more aggressive defense, and began forcing turnovers and finding good looks on offense. From down five, Maestas hit a pair of 3-pointers in quick succession, and suddenly the Lady Lobos found themselves ahead, though they trailed by a point at the end of the third.
Garcia took over in the fourth, starting with the first five points of the quarter. Though missed free throws hurt Escalante at times (outside of Martinez they were 3-for-13), their defense held Clayton away from the basket. An 11-2 run to start the quarter gave the Lobos a big lead, and they expanded it more as they closed out the win, led by a strong defense.
The Lady Lobos advance to play Thursday morning in Rio Rancho against No. 4 Capitan, who used a fourth-quarter rally and a 3-pointer in the final seconds to down No. 12 ecos in their quarterfinal. The Lady Tigers are led by Haileigh Brown, who scored 19 points with 15 rebounds in their morning win.
Still fresh on the mind for Escalante was last year’s loss in the state final, in which they lost to Clayton after a chaotic final minute of play.
“I read the paper all the time, ‘They don’t talk about it, they don’t think about it’” Clayton coach Clyde Sanchez said. “But deep inside they, when they Clayton play, they got up for it.”
And after the game, players admitted that it was, indeed, a factor for extra motivation.
“We want to win every game,” Martinez said. “This one was just a little more.”