Horsemen wake from slumber, overcome Pojoaque Valley
St. Michael’s finally wins close contest, advances to face West Las Vegas
What is one team’s poison is another team’s elixir. Many prep basketball coaches would blanch at the prospect of an almost two-week layoff, especially at the end of the season. For the St. Michael’s Horsemen, it might have been the perfect thing at the perfect time.
Behind a defensive effort that held the Pojoaque Elks to just 23 points over a 16-minute period, St. Michael’s overcame an early eight-point deficit to pull out a 57-53 win in the District 2-4A quarterfinal in Perez-Shelley Gymnasium on Wednesday night. The Horsemen take on West Las Vegas at 7 p.m. Thursday in Gillie Lopez Memorial Gymnasium for a spot in the district championship Saturday night at Las Vegas Robertson.
The win was also the perfect time for St. Michael’s (14-13) to finally come out on top of a close game. The Horsemen were 0-7 on the season in games decided by five points or less (forfeits excluded) coming into the district tournament, and they lost their last three games played on the court by two points — to Robertson, Taos and Pojoaque.
It was a maddening pattern that had St. Michael’s head coach Ron Geyer flummoxed.
“The monkey’s off our back for one night,” Geyer said. “We lost a lot of close ones in district. It’s great to come back and win one against a quality team like Pojoaque.”
Come back was exactly what the Horsemen did. The Elks (15-12) picked up where they left off in sweeping the season series against St. Michael’s, taking a 16-8 lead on James Garcia’s 3-pointer with 1 minute left in the opening quarter.
Pojoaque was poised, hitting six of its first 10 shots while turning the ball over just once in the first 8 minutes.
St. Michael’s appeared sluggish during that stretch, and its perimeter shooting (three 3s) kept it within 16-11 after a quarter.
“We were kinda rusty,” Horsemen senior guard Thomas Pacheco said. “We hadn’t played in a long time. We just needed to get back into the swing of things.”
And nothing gets the blood pumping like a little bit of defensive pressure. St. Michael’s applied some fullcourt pressure in the second quarter, as well as focusing on clamping down on Garcia and Elks wing Andres Romero in the halfcourt. It worked almost flawlessly, as Pojoaque turned the ball over 12 times over the next two quarters, while Garcia did not score after recording five points in the opening quarter.
“[Horsemen senior guard] Raymond Sena, he didn’t score, but he shadowed James Garcia for a lot of the game,” Geyer said. “He also had some big penetrations and got three assists and a steal. His play was huge.”
Romero had six points, but much of that was the result of a four-point play late in the second quarter that helped the Elks push their lead to 29-24 with 1:32 left in the first half. The Horsemen, though, responded with a 5-0 run that gave them their first lead of the game when Adam Tupler hit a shot off the glass with 33 seconds left for a 30-29 lead.
While Pojoaque struggled against the Horsemen pressure, the host team found its rhythm. An 8-0 run that saw Pacheco score six of his teamhigh 14 points in that stretch handed St. Michael’s a 38-31 lead midway through the third. The lead expanded to 49-39 when Pachceo drained a 3 near the top of the key with 7:02 left in the game.
While the Elks did not have a turnover in the fourth quarter, the 12 they had in the middle quarters stymied their offensive attack. Much of that had to do with the size of the Horsemen guards, who were bigger and made passing angles much for difficult for Pojoaque’s guards.
“That’s something we always look at, is matchups,” Pacheco said. “When you see that you’re bigger than someone, you use it to your advantage.”
Once Pojoaque started to take care of the ball better, it began to chip away at the margin but the rally came too late. Isaiah Herrera hit a 3 from the left wing with 1:06 left that brought the Elks within 53-51, but St. Michael’s executed down the stretch.
The Horsemen hit 4 of 5 at the free-throw line in the last minute, and Pacheco hit a pair with 17.7 seconds left for the final margin. It completed a 14-for-18 effort from the line and a 6-for-7 mark in the fourth quarter.
“We made the plays when we had to,” Geyer said.
Now comes a game that has a little extra meaning for the host Dons. They forfeited their two regular-season games against the Horsemen as punishment for violating New Mexico Activities Association bylaws when an assistant coach filmed the Jan. 17 St. Michael’s-Las Vegas Robertson game without permission from both schools.
West Las Vegas, which also forfeited its two games against the Cardinals, overcame the forfeitures to secure the second seed in the district tournament by virtue of forcing a three-way tie for second place with the Horsemen and Elks.
The Horsemen know the atmosphere will be intense as the two teams face off for the first time this season. It wasn’t something Geyer wanted to talk about, but the players know what to expect when they hit the floor.
“We just got to stay together as a team,” Pacheco said. “Just block everything out. It’s going to be hard, but if we’re together and talking to each other, we’ll be fine.”