The Lady Panthers from Peñasco High School were forced to weather the storm without their leader and offensive focal point in Carly Gonzales for the entire second quarter.
They did just that, but in the end, the Pecos High School Lady Panthers were lifted by Britney Martinez and captured a 57-54 win in the championship game of the 24th annual girls Northern Rio Grande Tournament Jan. 5 at Ben Luján Gymnasium.
With the game tied at 51 apiece with less than a minute remaining in the fourth quarter and all-state guard Cassie Mueller sitting on the bench after fouling out, Pecos (10-2) needed someone else to step up, and on this night, it was the senior Martinez.
She knocked down the shot of the game, draining a 3-pointer that first hit off the backboard and clunked back-and-forth off the rim before finally dropping through the net. The make gave Pecos a 54-51 lead with 36 seconds left, and it polished off a 7-0 run to comeback after trailing 51-47.
Martinez, along with Trinity Herrera, fueled Pecos with 13 points each and Alexis Gonzales scored 10.
“I was a little iffy to take it,” Martinez said about the defacto game-winning shot. “My other 3s weren’t going in, but I just took it and had confidence and it ended up working.”
Peñasco (9-3) was forced to foul for the duration of the game and Pecos sunk 2-of-3 from the free throw line down the stretch.
“I was a little nervous because my best shooter (Muller) was on the bench,” Pecos head coach Ron Drake said about the final three minutes. “She was an all-stater last year and my best rebounder (Faith Flores) is on the bench hurt. The subs stepped up and that’s all there is to it.”
Peñasco lost the services of Carly Gonzales for the entire second quarter after the junior post picked up her third personal foul with 1:18 remaining in the first quarter after already pouring in 11 points.
In her absence, Pecos — and specifically Flores — took advantage on the glass and continually extended offensive possessions. Their offensive rebounding effort wore down Peñasco and second chance points piled up, along with the fouls.
“That’s where we lost the game today,” Peñasco head coach Gilbert Mascareñas said. “It wasn’t really that our shots or our offense (wasn’t in sync), we just didn’t rebound. They were getting about three or four offensive rebounds each possession and we would foul, they’d get to the line and that’s where the foul trouble came from.”
Without Carly Gonzales, Mascareñas said his team became one-dimensional. However, Peñasco only trailed 27-22 at halftime and kept things just as competitive in the third. With Carly Gonzales back in the game and Flores unable to return after suffering a shoulder injury late in the first half, Peñasco got back to operating like a well-oiled machine.
The offense got back in sync, the rebounding improved and Carly Gonzales got back to the line. She made 7-of-9 attempts in the quarter and Adrianna Tafoya chipped in seven of her 12 second half points to keep Peñasco within striking distance, trailing 42-39 after the third.
“Going into half time, I wish we would have kept it at a tie or up two or whatever,” Mascareñas said. “We let them get up by five, so we exerted a lot of energy there in the first three or four minutes of that third quarter and we kinda ran out of gas late in the fourth.”
Pecos never ran out of gas, but their bus did break down in Santa Fe on the way to Pojoaque Valley High School, causing the team to arrive a full hour later than scheduled. While Pecos celebrated with the first-place trophy, Peñasco made a quick exit to the locker room after being handed the runner-up hardware.
“Right now, everybody is down in there (locker room),” Mascareñas said. “We expected to come out of here victorious, but I told them, ‘This will make us stronger.’”
Carly Gonzales finished with a game-high 21 points for Peñasco, while Tafoya had 14 and Alaska Lopez scored six of her seven points in the fourth quarter.
The two teams will retake the floor Jan. 22 at Peñasco.
“We feel pretty good about ourselves,” Drake said. “It might be a whole different story up there, though.”