The Mesa Vista Trojans held off a fourth-quarter comeback by the Coronado Leopards to win 49-46 Dec. 15 in Ojo Caliente.
After building a 12-point lead with three minutes left in the game, the Trojans watched the Leopards claw their way to within three points. Mesa Vista couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief until Leopard guard Johnny Chavez’s three-pointer bounced off the rim as time expired.
“We need to work on closing out games,” Mesa Vista coach Thomas Vigil said. “We just made some bad decisions and were lucky to come away with a win.”
Chavez had been the catalyst in Coronado’s comeback. The 5-foot-8-inch sharpshooter had buried a pair of three-pointers and nailed a couple of free throws to make the score 49-45 with less than a minute left to play. Coronado’s Patrick Cordova was fouled and sank 1-of-2 free throws to make the score 49-46 with 26 seconds left to play.
The Trojans got the ball back, but instead of running time off the clock, Greg Trujillo was fouled as he put up a baseline jump shot. He missed both free throws to give Coronado the ball back with 15 seconds to play.
The Leopards were looking to get the ball to Chavez in the corner, where he had hit both his three-pointers. However, Mesa Vista’s defense forced Chavez to come to the front court to retrieve the ball with time running out. His three-pointer missed, and the Trojans survived Coronado’s comeback bid.
“Our effort is what carried us through,” Vigil said. “We made some unacceptable mental mistakes.”
The Leopards had taken a 16-10 lead in the first quarter behind seven points from Chavez. Coronado extended the lead to 27-18 in the second quarter, but the Trojans’ defense turned up the heat and finished the first half with an 8-0 run. The Leopards led 27-26 at halftime.
The Leopard offense disappeared in the third quarter under Mesa Vista’s pressure, and the Trojans outscored Coronado 13-4 to take a 39-31 lead.
“We just didn’t run our offense,” Coronado coach Ezau Rios said. “Mesa applied the pressure and the players felt that we had to do what they wanted.”
It could have been worse for Coronado. The Trojans were just 3-of-8 from the free-throw line in the third quarter and finished the game just 16-of-33 from the charity stripe. Coronado made 16-of-23 free throws.
In the fourth quarter, a three-pointer by Alejandro Lopez gave the Trojans their biggest lead of the game, 49-37, before the Leopards mounted their comeback. Lopez led the Trojans with 12 points.
Chavez led all scorers with 27 points and has become the Leopards’ primary scorer since post Pedro Valdez fractured his elbow Dec. 11 against Pecos. Valdez was the Leopards’ tallest player at 6 feet, 3 inches. In his absence 6-foot point guard Cordova has had to pick up the slack rebounding and defending the inside.
“With Pedro out, this team has to play much smarter,” Rios said. “They haven’t made that decision yet.”
The Trojans improved to 5-4 on the season and faced a tough game Monday against Grants, a Class AAAA team, in the opening round of the Ben Lujan Tournament in Pojoaque.
“This team has to be tested,” Vigil said. “It does us no good to beat weak teams up.”