St. Michael’s handles loud crowd
That’s when Wingate opened the fourth quarter with a 14-2 run that cut the Horsemen lead to 52-45 on a 3-pointer from Trevor Morgan with 2:45 left in the game. It sent the crowd into a frenzy and had players like St. Michael’s guard Jevon Montoya doing their best to maintain order.
“We were concerned but it wasn’t too bad as long as we kept our composure and went through the plays,” he said. “We knew we were going to win this game from the start. We had the confidence from the workouts that we’ve been doing all week.”
Montoya had a team-high 18 points while Thomas Pacheco had 16.
While Rogers’ bucket, which came with 1:42 left in the game, may have stopped Wingate’s momentum and finally quieted the Bears’ fans just a bit, it was Pacheco’s hoop with just 53 seconds remaining that put the game out of reach.
Pacheco had half of his team’s 3-pointers. Wingate, who once took down big-school giant Cleveland with a hail of 3-pointers at the annual St. Michael’s tournament, had seven 3-balls of their own.
Their most important shots were those that didn’t fall, most of which came from beyond the arc as Wingate was storming its way back into the game. A handful came after the Bears had cut the deficit to single digits deep into the fourth quarter.
Geyer admitted he wasn’t entirely pleased with the way his club sputtered after building a giant lead. He said the offense failed to operate the way he wanted and defensively gave up too many quality looks.
He did, however, laud his team for going so far ahead in the first place.
“Credit the kids for doing a great job putting us so far ahead to begin with,” Geyer said. “It’s not easy when the crowd can be like this for the other team, but they responded well and did everything I could have hoped from them; great defense, hitting shots, all of it.”
GAME NOTES
Horsemen: Minus Archuleta’s scoring, St. Michael’s got nine huge points from Antonio Gabaldon and another nine from Rogers.
“That was probably the best game Curtis has played all season,” Geyer said.
Status: When asked about his injury, Archuleta didn’t rule out the possibility of returning in time for the state quarterfinals Wednesday.
“Right now, I’d say … I don’t know, maybe 40 [percent],” he said when asked to put a percentage on his return. “It might come down to how much pain I can take and it hurts a lot right now. I don’t know. I’ve still got a few days to see what they can do.”
He suffered the injury in practice Tuesday and went home thinking it was nothing more than an ankle sprain. It wasn’t until the following day that an exam revealed a stress fracture in the top of his right foot near the ankle.
Geyer said he was told Archuleta would be out four to six weeks, meaning the coaching staff isn’t holding out much hope of seeing his top offensive threat come back.