Volcano Vista wins with late surge
Hawks’ depth helps foil visiting Rio Rancho
It many ways, it was a win typical of this entire season for the Volcano Vista boys basketball team — accomplished by committee.
Over the last four minutes of Thursday night’s District 1-6A opener against visiting Rio Rancho, the Hawks — as deep as any team in Class 6A — had five players combine for their final 11 points, and Volcano Vista went on to a 60-55 victory over the Rams.
The game was tied at 49 with 4 minutes left.
“Huge. We have to protect our home court,” Volcano Vista coach Greg Brown said. “That is going to be really important to us.”
The Hawks’ diversity down the stretch was too much for Rio Rancho to overcome.
At 49-all, Jalontae Gray located a cutter, Cesar Madrid, whose layup with 3:49 remaining put Volcano Vista ahead 51-49.
Moments later, Ben Manzano scooped in a layup that almost seemed to defy gravity. The ball appeared to hit on the under side of the rim, but spun upward. Not only did Manzano get a terrific bounce, he also got an outstanding roll once it got on top of the rim as the Hawks (11-5, 1-0) went up by four.
Near the final minute, Keshawn Banks of Rio Rancho (10-9, 0-1) scored a layup to bring the Rams to within a point at 53-52.
Enter Gray again, whose hustle and awareness was responsible for the game’s most important play.
He drained a free throw with 47.3 seconds to go for a two-point lead. He missed the second attempt, but the Rams didn’t block him out. Gray circled around to his right, seized the rebound, was fouled again, and then buried two more free throws for a 56-52 advantage.
“I saw all of them close in, and the right side was wide open,” Gray said.
Andres Vigil added a bucket with 16 seconds left for a 58-52 lead, and Jorell Phillips sealed it with two free throws with 3.4 seconds left.
Notably, none of these points for the Hawks in the last four minutes originated from the Hawks’ leading scorer, forward Josh Parmenter, yet another indicator of how many weapons Volcano Vista possesses.
“We just have a next-man-up mentality,” Gray said.
Phillips led the Hawks with 14 points.
“The key for us was to keep them off the backboards, and we did a better job of that in the second half,” Brown said.
Banks had a team-best 14 points for the Rams, who face Cleveland tonight. The Storm on Thursday pounded Cibola 82-49 in its 1-6A opener. Aamer Muhammed had 21 points for Cleveland (13-6, 1-0), which had 12 players score in this game. — James Yodice
Girls
VALLEY 54, ALBUQUERQUE HIGH 50 (OT): At Valley, Destiny Maez had a team-best 16 points to pace the Vikings (5-11, 1-1 in 4-6A), who squandered a 12-point second-half lead to AHS (4-11, 1-1) before prevailing in OT.
CIBOLA 54, CLEVELAND 38: At Cibola, senior guard Amaya Brown had 36 points for the Cougars (16-1, 1-0) in a District 1-6A opening win over the Storm (9-10, 0-1). Cibola had just four players reach the scoring column.
Rio Rancho won at home Thursday night in another 1-6A opener, 44-30 over Volcano Vista.
WEST MESA 63, ATRISCO HERITAGE 26: At West Mesa, Jaden Castellano’s 17 points paced the Mustangs (14-2, 2-0 in 4-6A) over the Jaguars (7-9, 1-1).