Demons shift gears, win district opener against Albuquerque Sandia
Santa Fe High forced to shift gears, yielding victory over Abq. Sandia in district opener
Santa Fe High had to play against its type Tuesday night. A team that prefers to play up-tempo and press had to show patience and restraint, sometimes for minutes at a time to open District 2-6A play. The Matadors of Albuquerque Sandia weren’t about to let the Demons run and gun their way up and down Toby Roybal Memorial Gymnasium. In fact, it seemed like Sandia didn’t even want the home team to have the ball at times.
So, the Demons had to wait out possession for a minute or two before the Matadors made their move, but their patience was rewarded with a 37-27 win to open the district season 1-0. The win is Santa Fe High’s fourth in a row, and brings its record to 9-8 on the season.
More important, though, was that the Demons showed they could win a game that went against their preferred style.
“In the first half of the season, we probably don’t pull this game out,” Santa Fe High head coach Zack Cole said. “Because we’ve gone through these type of highintensity games throughout the season, it’s gotten us better. And I told the boys when we were going through the tougher times that, as long as we learn from it, it’s not that bad. But if we’re doing this at the end of the season, then it’s bad.”
Times were tough midway through the second quarter as the Matadors simply ran their sets over and over against the Demons. Eventually, Santa Fe High broke down on defense and the results were uncontested shots and layups. Sandia methodically fashioned a 7-2 scoring spurt that culminated in a Dylan Perry drive with 2 minutes, 47 seconds left for a 14-11 lead.
“It was tough,” Santa Fe High senior forward Diego Salinas said. “Talking and running around is hard. We communicated well, but it was tough.”
And Cole decided it was time to stop expending so much energy playing manto-man defense and drop into a zone. The
Demons alternated between a 2-3 zone and a 1-1-3 zone that packed it in but also put pressure on the Matadors’ guards. The defenses had the effect of slowing Sandia down even more, but they also succeeded in forcing turnovers — eight in all in the second half.
It didn’t matter that the Matadors squeezed 2:28 off of the clock in their first possession of the third quarter, which resulted in an Elijah Ferguson layup for a 16-15 lead with 5:15 left in the quarter. The next five possessions saw Sandia (7-8, 0-1) turn the ball over four times and miss its only other shot of the quarter.
The Demons turned two of those miscues into baskets — an Antonio Lovato drive from the wing and a Victor Salcido breakaway layup gave them a 19-16 lead with 3:03 left. The turning point came in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, as Santa Fe High finally got the pace up to its speed and scored seven straight points in 64-second span. Lovato had five of the points, including a tip-in off a missed Jonah Baca free throw that gave the Demons a 26-18 lead with 6 minutes left.
Sandia no longer could be as patient as it wanted.
“They have to start attacking us and coming to us, instead of us going after them,” Lovato said. “Once we got the lead up to eight, they had to penetrate more instead of just going through their offense.”
That left the door open for some unsung heroes to step through, and Christian Kavanaugh picked his spot at the right time. The junior guard hit a corner 3-pointer with 4:33 left to up the margin to 29-20, then picked Ferguson’s pocket at midcourt and drove in for a layup two possessions later that made it 31-22 with 3:23 left.
“That 3 was pretty big,” Kavanaugh said. “And then that steal, I was just doing my job on defense, like I do.”
Actually, the Demons collectively did their job down the stretch. They were 4-for-4 from the line and Sandia missed four of their last five shots. Cole said it was important for the team to start playing well at this point in the season, as was building upon last week’s big win over Capital.
“The focus has been on what we need to do offensively and defensively in practice,” Cole said. “We’re still figuring out some rotations with new guys we’re bringing up to the varsity, but they are jumping into their roles fine. And that’s what we’re excited about.”