Peñasco trounces McCurdy by 68
The Peñasco Lady Panthers won Monday’s (Jan. 16) home conference game against the McCurdy Lady Bobcats by a wide margin of 85-17.
It was a 37-point trouncing by halftime.
In the second half, the focus for the Lady Panthers went into getting the most out of the game, as you would from a good scrimmage. The Lady Panthers didn’t let up in the second half, leading to the final 68-point differential after four quarters of play.
According to Peñasco coach Mandy Montoya, the Lady Panthers were able to try out some different defensive looks in the game, going from a 1-2-1-1 to a 2-2-1. At one point, it seemed as though sharpshooter Alyssa Atencio got to play the role of point guard and play-caller in the fourth quarter for Peñasco.
The Lady Panthers were also able to get “some practice off of it,” Montoya said. “Working a little bit at our offensive sets, a little bit more in the half court in that focus. But, another one of our focuses was how we ran it in our transition, too. Running our lanes right — kind of got away from that when we were a little bit too crowded too much.”
“Tough place [at Pecos] to win at,” Montoya said. “We went on a stretch again where we just missed a ton of shots, put ourselves in a tough position at the end. But, you know, we still had a chance to win the game even despite that.”
“We had a look at a three at the end that got called a two,” she added. “Got a three-second call called against us. You know, you have to live with all that. But, we still had a chance to win there at the end even despite going on a stretch of not making any shots.”
Comeback from back-to-back losses
Monday night’s game was a comeback after the Lady Panthers lost on Saturday (Jan. 14) to Pecos, 29-35, and to Los Alamos on Thursday ( Jan. 12), 40-58.
The live stream from the National Federation High School Network captured the away game, showing Pecos coming away winning the close game by just 6 points.
Thursday’s (Jan. 12) non-league battle between the hosting Class 2A Peñasco Lady Panthers and visiting Class 4A Los Alamos Lady Hilltoppers saw Los Alamos overpower Peñasco.
Peñasco’s defense has given even top-tier teams fits thus far — the first time Peñasco fought against the Class 4A Lady Hilltoppers back in December in the St. Mike’s Tournament, the game went to overtime and Peñasco pulled out the victory 59-55.
This time around, the Lady Hilltoppers made the right adjustments and held on to a doubledigit lead throughout the second half. In an interview with the Taos News, Lady Hilltoppers coach Ray Romero said his team did their homework the day before the match.
“We were really game-planning
for Roberston,” he said. “We lost by 9 at Robertson [on Tuesday] so we were focusing on them but, yeah, we focused on Peñasco yesterday [Wednesday]. We watched some film, and the girls knew what we had to do and I’m glad they did it, they executed.”
Los Alamos moved the ball well, collecting 19 assists as a team and shooting a good percentage from deep — hitting 30 percent of their 3-pointers. They applied pressure to the Lady Panthers and were able to generate 19 steals off of that pressure. Los Alamos had enough size on the front court between Mackenzie Echave and Tara McDonald to slow down Peñasco’s reliable interior threat, Analise MacAuley.
What did it take to hold on that lead in the half?
“A little bit of discipline,” Romero said. “We made some good passing. We shared the ball, and we played good defense. We switched our defense to a different press, and that helped us. I think we did some different things, tried to change it up a little bit so they don’t get so comfortable.”
According to MaxPreps, Los Alamos would go on to beat Bosque 1-0 in their following game.