Home cure for heartbreak?
Lady Horsemen hope to snap their seven-game losing streak while hosting Cuba Rams in opening round
Finally, a different uniform will walk into Perez-Shelley Gymnasium on Friday night. After a month of seeing the same turnstile of teams — Santa Fe Indian School, West Las Vegas and Las Vegas Robertson — the St. Michael’s Lady Horsemen get to rest their eyes upon new faces as the opening round of the Class 3A State Girls Basketball Tournament begins against the Cuba Rams.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time.
After losing all six district games and dropping a 39-37 heartbreaker to the Lady Braves in the District 2-3A quarterfinal, St. Michael’s hopes a fresh opponent will be the cure to a seven-game losing streak.
Despite the loss, the Lady Horsemen earned a No. 7 seed in the 3A bracket, thanks in large part to an 11-game winning streak during the nondistrict schedule that helped build a 13-4 mark once 2-3A play commenced. It should be noted that St. Michael’s lost to three teams seeded in the top six during its losing streak, but the problem has been the mounting frustration of coming oh-so-close to beating them.
Only one of the losses was by double digits, and the Lady Horsemen led by six points heading into the fourth quarter before getting outscored 21-5 by Robertson in the fourth quarter of the Feb. 17 matchup that the Cardinals won, 51-41.
St. Michael’s head coach Sonya Ruiz said the team’s struggles were partly a result of a lack of games. When Raton opted not to play a 2-3A schedule in mid-January, it took away two games from the Lady Horsemen schedule. In turn, St. Michael’s had two nine-day breaks between games and a 13-day stretch since late January.
Ruiz and her coaching staff responded by scrimmaging more to simulate game action, but that had limited benefits.
“We’ve also worked more on game situations because we’ve had time to do that the last couple of weeks,” Ruiz said. “So, it’s been a lot of scrimmaging and things like that to get more game-time experience. To be honest, I don’t think we need more practice. We need to play games — and we need to win.”
The lack of games partially explains the scoring and turnover issues St. Michael’s displayed during district play. The scoring droughts were more perplexing because the droughts seemed to come at just about any time during games. Against Robertson, it was the fourth quarter. In a 40-32 loss to West Las Vegas on Feb. 20, the Lady Dons scored the first 11 points of the game.
“It’s definitely been hard,” St. Michael’s senior wing Jada Lujan said. “We’re just trying to find that chemistry again when we won 11 in a row.”
However, turnovers were the bigger problem against SFIS. St. Michael’s had 32 in a 61-57 loss to finish the regular season and that problem flowed into its subsequent loss to the Lady Braves in the district tournament.
Ruiz said her team has thrived on creating turnovers but struggled at finishing those extra opportunities. That showed in district play.
“We turn those turnovers into turnovers on our end,” Ruiz said. “And our district teams, which are some of the best teams in 3A, they are good at [converting those turnovers into points].”
If there were growing doubts within the team, they were assuaged when St. Michael’s earned the seventh seed. Ruiz said that was the reward for a tough nondistrict schedule in which the Lady Horsemen played the fourth toughest strength of schedule rating in 3A, according to MaxPreps.com.
“They are in a good place and our seed has a lot to do with that,” Ruiz said. “It’s not just us believing that we’re a good team; it’s other people. Seeding is a numbers-driven process, and the numbers speak for themselves.”
But the more important number for the Lady Horsemen this weekend is this: one.
One win and they advance to the 3A quarterfinals in Rio Rancho next week.
One win and seven straight losses become a distant memory.