Peñasco girls hopes for a ‘Merry Swishmas’ dashed by Clayton
The Clayton Lady Yellowjackets, defending 2A champions, have won a majority of their games this season by double digits, so they may not have expected a dogfight on Wednesday (Dec. 21) against the Peñasco Lady Panthers, who started off strong but ultimately lost by a large margin, with a final score of 48-27.
Led by the interior post play of Analise MacAuley, the Lady Panthers jumped out in front 10-6.
MacAuley has a full arsenal of moves. She’s got pumpfakes and up-and-unders. Later in the game, she utilized a beautiful eurostep in transition on a Yellowjacket but the shot rimmed out.
A Rochelle Lopez bankshot on the next offensive possession increased the lead to 12-6 for the Lady Panthers shortly before the end of the first quarter.
Clayton coach Clyde Sanchez spoke with the Taos News about the team’s solid start.
“[Peñasco] came out pretty strong in that first quarter. And they battled all through the game; you know, they’re a gutsy little team,” he said. “They fought until the end, which is always great. But our girls kept their composure and we just got to do a couple of things that we need to do on our side.”
Clayton’s 6-foot Morgan Crisp has a fundamentally sound shot form bearing some similarities to that of Reggie Miller’s release; hers is high, repeatable and often out of reach from a defender’s hand. Make or miss, Crisp is comfortable shooting from the elbow or out from deep. Crisp’s 3-pointer on the left wing in the second quarter was a sign of things to come in the second half. In addition to Crisp, Emerson Beiland is another Yellowjacket willing to shoot and seems technically sound enough to justify letting it fly.
At the half, the Yellowjackets had overcome the slight deficit to lead 21-15 over the Lady Panthers.
Peñasco had opportunities to score in transition, either from forcing turnovers through ball pressure or from denying Clayton good looks at the basket. They
just couldn’t capitalize on the fast break. Clayton was quick to run back and contest — mostly cleanly, but not always — by using their verticality at the rim.
Lopez, who has the stamina and podium finishes of a Class 2A track star, was able to disrupt most of the primary ball handlers for Clayton. Her defense, along with MacAuley’s shot-blocking ability, kept the game close until the fourth quarter.
Needing to gain ground on a team that could shoot several feet away from the 3-point line, the Lady Panthers had to guard
aggressively on the perimeter in the final quarter, opening up the driving lanes for Clayton. Between the shots Clayton made and the numerous long rebounds they gathered from ricochets, a game that was within single digits turned into a 21-point victory for the Yellowjackets.
Peñasco coach Mandy Montoya, who was rocking a festive Merry Swishmas ugly sweater (an early Christmas present from her mom) spoke with the Taos News on the difficulties of covering Clay
in the hopes of a potential charge. Chavez avoided the contact and layed it up for the go-ahead game winner.
After the loss, coach Tim Pacheco spoke with the Taos News on his
team’s performance in the second half.
“I think we kind of still stuck with the same game plan instead of switching it up,” Pacheco said. “So I thought that’s what maybe gave them a little bit of a break, we took too long to adjust. Number 10 [Jeremiah Huerta], he was the one that had it going, he had the hot hand. We took too long when we actually
shifted to that.
“It was like a box-and-1 but a diamond-and-1, so we put my fastest guy on him and we were able to stop him from getting those easy buckets,” Pacheco continued. “And then I think that’s where it kind of shifted back in our favor. On offense, we stayed a little bit stagnant. Maybe we were starting to get a little bit fatigued. And I think that’s where
that came from. We weren’t getting as aggressive attacking the bucket as we were the first time.”
The Panthers, especially Archibeque, found success when he took it up strong to the basket. Archibeque’s averaging 26.5 points a game this season.
Pacheco spoke with the Taos News about the significance of the Panthers moving forward after
almost pulling out a victory over a top-tier team.
“I think it’s a big confidence builder for our guys,” he said, “because Santa Rosa has been one of the top teams coming out in the beginning of the season — we could have easily had that game. And we actually haven’t had a full roster before. So this is the first time we have our full roster out on the court.”