Basketball Boys Re-Caps
Boys 5A
The La Cueva Bears proved to be a quick study in maturity.
The young but ambitious Bears rode some clutch free throw shooting by junior guard Troy Ramos and a costly late technical call on Highland coach Danny Brown to a 56-52 win over the Hornets in the Class 5A title game.
With only two seniors on the squad, the Bears pushed aside the idea that their time for a blue trophy might be a year or two away. With poise and patience they turned back a Highland team that had ended the regular season on a roll.
The championship is the fourth for La Cueva, all under coach Frank Castillo. Highland was seeking its second basketball title. The Hornets won their only basketball championship in 1972.
The loss also denied Brown a chance to join his father, Mike, and brother Greg as coaches with state titles. Mike Brown has won six championships at Albuquerque Academy and Greg Brown won a 5A title at Manzano.
Ramos finished with 22 points and hit 10 of 11 free throws.
La Cueva took control on the technical foul assessed to Brown after he disputed a foul call on Highland point guard Marcos Franco. Highland trailed 52-49 at the time with 19.4 seconds left.
La Cueva’s Isaiah Howard missed the two free throws off the foul called on Franco, but Wes Ennis hit both free throws off the technical. Seconds later Ennis hit two more free throws and Franco scored the final Highland points with a 3-pointer.
Franco finished with 22 points.Chad Adams, headed to the University of New Mexico, scored 14 for Highland.
La Cueva finished the season with a record of 25-7. Highland, which had won eight of its last nine coming into the tournament, finished with a 26-4 record.
Boys 4A
Britt Cooper was born when Roswell High was a powerhouse in boys basketball
Cooper was born in Clovis in the fall of 1964. The previous March, Roswell High had beaten mighty Hobbs 80-79 to capture the 2A state championship. Back then, there were only two classifications in boys basketball.
There was no way of knowing that 45 years would go by before the Coyotes again hoisted a State Tournament championship trophy.
``It’s been a long time coming. I told these kids they had a chance to be a part of something special,’’ Cooper said moments after the Coyotes beat Artesia 59-50 in the 4A title game.
Point guard Keydrick Allen scored 18 points and junior A.J. Peralta scored 16, all in the second half, as Roswell polished off it’s run to the title with its third win in the 2008-09 season over district rival Artesia.
Allen, the speedy quarterback on a Roswell team that featured an imposing frontline of 6-foot-7 Marek Olesinski and the 6-foot-5 Peralta, also had a team high 11 rebounds and 5 assists.
Artesia, survivors of a triple-overtime in which they ousted top-seed Espanola Valley (58-56) in the semifinals, showed some of the side effects of the marathon two nights earlier.
The Bulldogs had trouble getting shots to fall and by the end of the game appeared to have lost their legs. Senior forward Derek Montoya, who scored 37 points against Espanola Valley and hit the game-winner on a baseline shot at the buzzer, scored just 8 points against Roswell. Center Dallas Bollema scored 17 points, but picked up three fouls in the second half that sent him to the bench. With him out of the lineup, the taller and athletic Coyotes pulled away.
Still, Artesia coach Ike Montoya didn’t make excuses.
``I think the only thing that hurt us was the shooting percentages,’’ Montoya said. ``We’re not going to blame the loss on the triple overtime. We just didn’t shoot the ball well.’’
Artesia hit just 3 of 15 3-pointers and 18 of 47 shots from the field (38 percent).
Artesia led 21-19 at halftime but the Coyotes knew they were in good shape because Peralta, in foul trouble early, and Olesinski were both scoreless in the first two quarters.
``Our two leading scorers hadn’t even scratched and we were down only two,’’ said Cooper.
Roswell ended the season with a record of 23-7. Artesia finished 23-9.
The win ended decades of tough losses for Roswell over the last four-plus decades. In 1965 the Coyotes lost in the title game to Valley and it would be 22 years more before they’d get to the finals. That came in a 1987 loss to Hobbs. Since then they had lost three times in the semifinal round.
Cooper, who played at Floyd High, has been the head coach at Roswell High for 15 years. He understands that in southern New Mexico, basketball isn’t usually the marquee sport.
``Maybe now people we realize that we play pretty pretty good basketball in the South and not just football,’’ he said.
Boys 3A
As often as the Hope Christian bench yelled out Jordan Romero’s name, one might have thought Romero was one of the Huskies.
Not so. Romero was Hope’s target of the moment, or in this case, for 32 minutes.
Hope Christian’s young and talent-deep squad defensed the multi-talented Romero from baseline to baseline and wore down the St. Michael’s Horsmen for a 55-44 win in the boys 3A championship game.
The Huskies (28-3) won their eighth state championship in nine appearances in the championship game. This was their first in 3A, after seven titles in 2A from 1985 through 2006.
St. Michael’s, a school with deep basketball roots and a rich tradition of success, beat Hope Christian in the 2007 title game. The Horsemen own 10 state championships and under coach Ron Geyer have won two titles and reached the championship game three times in the last four years.
St. Mike’s finished the 2008-09 season at 23-8.
The Horsemen’s chances for another title rested squarely on Romero’s shoulders and both teams knew it. The Hope Christian coaching staff through the entire game made sure the Huskies had Romero in their sights at all times.
``Where’s Jordan, where’s Jordan,’’ became a constant refrain from the Hope Christian bench.
Romero led the Horsemen with 19 points and added 7 rebounds. But the Huskies managed to slow him down enough to pull away in the final minutes of a game that was much closer than the final score would suggest.
``We needed to limit his touches,’’ Hope Christian coach Jim Murphy said of their defensive emphasis on Romero. ``He’s had a great high school career and good things happen when you limit the times he touches the ball.’’
Romero didn’t score in the third quarter, but the Horsemen still had battled the taller Huskies to a 29-all standoff heading into the final quarter.
A layup by St. Mike’s Justin Smith gave the Horsemen their final lead (35-33) with just over six minutes remaining. The Huskies, with a sense of urgency that saw them score on all but two of their fourth quarter possessions, ran off 10 straight points for a 43-35 lead with 3:08 left.
The Horsemen had two 3-point shots rim out in that stretch, including one by Romero, who’s only points over the final seven minutes were a 3-pointer with 1:30 left that cut the Huskies’ lead to 45-41.
A free throw by 6-foot-6 freshman Arren Wells and an offensive rebound basket by senior guard Matt Escajeda pushed the lead up to 48-41. Moments later, Romero picked up his fifth foul.
While Romero shot 50 percent from the field, hitting 6 of 12 shots, the rest of the Horsemen hit just 9 of 29 shots. No other St. Michael’s player scored more than six points.
Geyer said the Horsemen knew Romero would be the focus of the Huskies’ defense. ``All year long he’s faced gimmick defenses,’’ said Geyer. ``We had a lot of opportunities and didn’t finish.’’
Of the Huskies’ fourth quarter run, Geyer said Hope’s height advantage finally took its toll. ``They go 6-6, 6-4, 6-4 and we’re 6-1.’’
Six-foot-four junior center Christian Schlenker led the Huskies with 18 points. Wells added 13 and junior Matt Murphy had seven points and seven rebounds.
Chances are good the Huskies will be back in The Pit next March. The 2008-09 squad had eight juniors and two freshmen.
BOYS 2A
Sophomore Jose Posada’s prayer of a shot got the Texico Wolverines to the championship game. Some clutch free throws by his older brother were huge in the defending champions getting another blue trophy.
Texico, which beat Mesilla Valley (58-57) in the semifinals on Posada’s bankshot 3-pointer at the buzzer, edged Santa Rosa 48-46 in the championship game.
Seth Bailey scored 24 points for the Wolverines, but the title game came down to the free throw line, where Jose’s older brother, senior Mario Posada, hit three foul shots in the game’s final three minutes and Bailey added another with 13.2 seconds left.
Those four free throws were the final points in a game that saw Santa Rosa rally from a 13-point halftime deficit. Down 40-29 going into the fourth quarter, the Lions rode the scoring of senior Jeff Reeves on a torrid run. Reeves scored 10 of his 24 points in the first four minutes of the final period and his 3-pointer with 4:16 remaining tied it at 44. Teammate Robert Serrano then gave the Lions their first lead since the game’s opening minutes with an offensive rebound basket with 3:33 left.
But it would the Lions’ final points.
Mario Posada was fouled with 2:53 left and hit both ends of a 1-and-1. He hit another free throw with 37.1 seconds left for a 47-46 Texico lead.
Santa Rosa, which struggled offensively most of the game, missed several shots down the stretch. Reeves missed two free throw attempts with 24.7 seconds remaining and Texico’s Bailey hit a free throw with 13.2 seconds.
The Lions got the ball to Reeves, but Texico’s defense prevented him from getting off a shot. Santa Rosa’s Ricardo Roybal’s long shot just before the buzzer was off the mark.
Mario Posada said he normally isn’t a very good free throw shooter and had a Plan B in mind when he stepped to the line.
``If I missed, I was going to get back and play defense. But I knew the free throws were big.’’
Santa Rosa coach Frank Ortiz said the difference was his team’s inability to maintain momentum after taking the late lead.
``We just weren’t very smart when we took the lead. But Texico is a heck of a team,’’ he said.
Texico, the No. 4 seed coming into the tournament, ended the season with a record of 29-3. Santa Rosa, the No. 2 seed, finished 28-5.
In small town New Mexico, the sports seasons melt into each other and Santa Rosa and Texico they didn’t have long to wait to meet again. Three days after their match-up in The Pit, the two were set to play in baseball.
Boys 1A
Fate and a foul brought Barrett Williamson and Jesus Urquijo together on The Pit floor on a late winter night.
It’s safe to say the memory of that moment will stay with them for a lifetime.
For Williamson, the future will be a time to remember when he survived a mistake that could have cost his school it’s biggest basketball victory. Urquijo may look back and remember how his final high school game ended in heartbreak.
Fort Sumner, a football power through the years, captured its first boys state basketball championship with a 67-66 win over Springer in the Class 1A finals.
It all came down to that meeting of Williamson and Urquijo near midcourt just before the final buzzer.
Trailing 67-64 and with 4.1 seconds left, the Red Devils were looking for a 3-pointer from their best shooter, sophomore Isaiah DeHerrera. But DeHerrera, who hit seven 3-pointers in the game, couldn’t get open and the ball ended up in Urquijo’s hands.
Urquijo launched a 30-footer that just beat the buzzer and came off the front of the rim. As the buzzer sounded, Fort Sumner fans were already celebrating. But a whistle cut short through the cheering. Williamson was called for a foul on the play and Urquijo and his teammates had one last chance.
Amid the toughest pressure a teen-ager can face, the 5-foot-6 Urquijo stepped to the line and hit the first two of the three foul shots. He pumped his fist after the second free throw swished through and stepped back from the line. He regrouped and got back to the line for the third free throw. Hit it and it’s overtime.
The shot looked good when it left the 5-foot-6 guard’s hands and nearly got home before spinning out. Urquijo grimaced and dropped to the floor on his back, burying his his face in his hands as his teammates ran in to console him.
In the aftermath, the seemingly shell-shocked Foxes were grateful and nearly speechless.
``I was just hoping he’d miss one,’’ said Williamson.
``I was hoping he’s miss one because I didn’t know if we could survive overtime,’’ said Fort Sumner coach John Wootton.
Springer coach Jimmy Apodaca said the missed free throw shouldn’t define Urquijo’s final high school game.
``That’s a great thing Jesus did hitting two out of three,’’ said Apodaca. ``I’m sure there are some collegians and even NBA players that wouldn’t have hit the first. It didn’t end the way I wanted, but it ended with Jesus playing in The Pit and that’s great.’’
The title game saw the lead change hands numerous times until Fort Sumner took a 64-58lead with just over two minutes left. The Red Devils battled back and were within 66-64 with 51.4 seconds left after a Johnny Chavez banked in a short jumper. Chavez fouled out on a charging call with 18.7 seconds left andWilliamson hit a free throw for Fort Sumner’s final point with 5 seconds left.
Chavez scored 23 points and DeHerrera had 21 as the two combined for nine of the Red Devils’ 10 3-pointers. Springer, which won state titles in 2002 and 2004, had a season record of 27-4.
Berry Stinnett scored 22 points and Rawley Stallard 21 for the Foxes, who finished the year with a 21-9 record.