For the first time in history, a blue trophy in the sport of basketball will be headed to Las Vegas.
Neither West Las Vegas or Robertson High School boys or girls teams had ever claimed a state championship in the sport, but the first-seeded Lady Cardinals (29-2) from Robertson changed that March 15 with a dominating star-to-finish performance to defeat district rival No. 2 Santa Fe Indian School 62-46 in the Class 3A state championship game at Dreamstyle Arena-The Pit.
If Indian School was hoping familiarity would play a part – considering it was the fifth matchup between the teams this season – Robertson’s Alianza Darley made sure that was anything but the case.
Darley said so herself in the previous games against the Lady Braves (27-5) that she had done a majority of her damage outside on the perimeter, but a change of pace to the low post was nothing she couldn’t handle.
She poured in a game-high 27 points on the block, including 15 in the second half to help Robertson protect a 32-15 lead built after two quarters of play to defeat the Indian School for the fourth time this season.
“I’m more of a guard, but I know how to play every position,” Darley said. “Moving me to the bottom wasn’t a big shock for me, but I think this was the biggest game I’ve played in the post.”
The Lady Cardinals scored 18 points in the paint in the second quarter to help break the game open and Robertson finished the game with a 36-14 advantage in the paint.
“It’s the fifth time we’ve played them and they throw a lot of gimmick defenses at us,” Robertson head coach Jose Medina said. “I was expecting for them to go box-and-1, triangle-and-2, so we had set up some offense to try and go high-low and take advantage of our size inside with Jazmyne (Jenkins) and Alianza.”
Santa Fe Indian school utilized the box-and-1 early in the game, but in hindsight, Indian School head coach Patricia Chavez believed a “Lady Brave” press would have been the better suited defensive choice.
“I think I overthought that, so I take the blame on that part,” Chavez said. “Their bigs are huge and when they do a give-and-go or a double-post, it’s really dominating and you feel that force, I think.”
Jenkins and Tessa Ortiz scored 12 points apiece for Robertson and Hunter Garcia carried the Lady Braves with 14.
Class 2A: Pecos High School 53, Mescalero Apache School 46 (OT)
Basketball fans around the Pecos community have gotten used to state championships, and they witnessed another when the boys team completed a 3-peat by defeating Newcomb High School March 16 at The Pit.
However, a day earlier, it was time for the girls team to finally join the party.
The Lady Panthers won the first girls basketball championship in school history by outlasting pesky eighth-seeded Mescalero Apache 53-46 in overtime March 15 at The Pit.
The Lady Braves had their shot at stealing the game in regulation after freshman Pearl Pike made a shot underneath the basket while being fouled at the buzzer to tie the game at 38 apiece. Officials had to review the play via video replay, and after about five-or-so minutes, they put just 0.1 seconds back on the clock.
Iced by the delay in action, Pike missed the free throw attempt, sending the game to overtime where Mescalero was outworked 15-8 without leader Fallon Velasquez, who fouled out in the last minute of regulation.
Senior Brittney Martinez carried Pecos down the stretch, as she was responsible for 14 of the team’s final 26 points in the fourth quarter and overtime.
“I always know when to try and step up,” Martinez said. “We’re a team, but if one of us isn’t hitting our shots another one is.”
Pecos head coach and former Espanola Valley girls coach Ron Drake clinched his 631st win in his career and finally notched a state championship in 25 years of coaching in New Mexico.
“I don’t know if I’m more tired from the game or walking up that ramp,” Drake said with a laugh about the stroll up The Pit’s ramp to the media interview room. “It means so much for Pecos, the community and the fans and everything. For me, I enjoy it too, but I enjoy these girls more. It was a great run this year and they worked so hard.”
The continual theme of the year for Pecos was not just their ability to stay active on the glass, but more so, their will and tenacity to rebound. They followed up a 56-rebound effort against Peñasco in the semifinals and outrebounded the Lady Chiefs 60-34.
“It’s been like that all year and I think we only got outrebounded by one or two teams this year,” Drake said. “Texico was maybe both of them and we were pretty close to them cause Texico’s a big team. But, you know, these guys get positions, they’re jumping jacks and Faith (Flores) can jump out of the gym when she wants to.”
Class 5A: West Mesa High School 63, Hobbs High School 51
It’s tough to imagine withstanding a 21-0 run and a 48 percent shooting performance (60 percent from 3-point range) in the first half from the opposition to come back and win a state championship.
And to win it by double-digits.
The third-seeded West Mesa Lady Mustangs did just that March 16 to capture the school’s first-ever girls basketball state championship after they stormed back and hobbled No. 1 Hobbs in the second half to take the Class 5A crown 63-51 at The Pit.
“I would have never imagined that,” West Mesa head coach Manny Otero said. “Any score that we were down, I still had total faith in our girls that we could come back.”
Senior guard Maiah Rivas was a big part of the turnaround for West Mesa, as she scored 14 of her game-high 23 points in the second half behind commanding and aggressive guard play.
“Honestly, we never put our heads down and we kept pushing the intensity,” Rivas said. “Whether we have missed shots, we’re still rebounding, we’re still shooting and we’re a shooting team.”
The Lady Mustangs’ defense nearly cut Hobbs shooting performance by half in the final 16 minutes. The Lady Eagles’ mark dropped from 48 to 26 percent, and like Rivas said, West Mesa kept shooting and they ended the game at 43 percent.
Just to top things off, the Lady Mustangs coolly knocked down 19-of-20 free throw attempts at the line.
Class 4A: Los Lunas High School 49, Kirtland Central High School 43
Behind a 61 percent (17-of-28) shooting performance, the second-seeded Los Lunas Lady Tigers toppled No. 1 Kirtland Central 49-43 to claim the Class 4A state championship March 15 at The Pit to repeat as champions and avenge a December home loss to the Lady Broncos.
The Lady Tigers limited Kirtland to eight points apiece in the second and third quarters and held all Lady Broncos’ scorers in single-digits.
Kirtland was completely taken out of their own game and the Lady Broncos shot 4-of-18 from deep and Tatelyn Manheimer was held to a tournament-low three points on 1-of-7 shooting.
“I thought we got some open looks that we didn’t knock down,” Kirtland Central head coach Devon Manning said. “But again, Los Lunas was very quick in getting out on us and that kind of rushed us.”
Los Lunas head coach Marty Zeller credited the defensive success to his girls’ ability to identify.
“We wanted to keep it away from 22 (Manheimer), so our girls know how to identify,” Zeller said. “We work on identifying shooters and penetrators extremely hard and it paid off.”
Mia Guest scored a game-high 15 points for Los Lunas and Natalie Jojola complemented her with 12 off of four 3-pointers.
Class 1A: Tatum High School 57, Melrose High School 48
The Lady Coyotes may have slept walked out of the locker room to shoot 3-of-16 in the first half, but Tatum held strong to overcome those woes and erased a 10-point second half deficit to top No. 1 Melrose 57-48 March 16 at The Pit.
“I think we had some nerves and didn’t hit some shots we characteristically knock down,” Tatum head coach Vince Homer said. “Hats off to Melrose, they really extended us, pressured us, but all year long I’ve just reminded these ladies to trust what we do.”
Trailing 26-20 at halftime, the Lady Coyotes outscored the Lady Buffaloes 18-8 in the third quarter and 37-26 overall in the second half.
Celeste Jimenez scored 21 points for Tatum (14-of-18 from the free throw line) as one of the four Lady Coyotes in double-digits, while Melrose’s Hailey Martin countered with 21 of her own.