Lady Pintos ‘on the right track’ after big wins over East Mountain and Aztec
After dropping their season opener at Bernalillo, Moriarty’s girls basketball team rebounded with two back-to-back routs this week.
The Lady Pintos cruised past the 3A East Mountain Lady Timberwolves 6424 on Nov. 30 and then rolled to a 52-30 win the next day over the 4A Aztec Lady Tigers.
Despite only shooting 28% in the opening quarter at East Mountain, Moriarty built a 12-5 lead by the end of the frame.
The Lady T’wolves made just two of their 10 first-quarter shots, with Kaylee Baker accounting for both—one a 3pointer near the end of the period.
Moriarty’s Sophia Marez opened the second quarter with a jump shot, and Payton Edwards followed with a layup and a 3-point basket. Evann Segura sank a pair of layups, and Presley Edwards hit a pair of jumpers. Aneesa Chavez put the Pintos up 39-16 with a 3-pointer with a minute left, and then took a pass from Payton Edwards and sank a door-slamming layup with :10 to go.
The Lady Pintos outscored the Lady T’wolves 31-11 in the stanza to take a commanding 43-16 lead into halftime. “We knew [East Mountain] is a team that we wanted to beat, this is kinda like our rivalry team, so we were like, ‘We wanna go out there and show ‘em what we can do,’ especially after our loss against Bernalillo,” Payton Edwards said.
The bright spots for East Mountain during the second quarter were Baker’s second 3-pointer of the game, and a 3 by Lilly Chavez.
“I’ve played with most of these girls, like, I know how they play and they’re good,” Baker said of Moriarty. “But I think we played good, it just took us a while to get into the swing of things.”
Segura and Payton Edwards sank back-to-back 3s to start the third quarter. Lilly Chavez hit two more 3s for East Mountain’s only points of the period.
Payton Edwards scored a game-high 16 points. Aneesa Chavez contributed 14, and Segura added 11.
Lilly Chavez’ three 3s helped her score a team-high 13 points for East Mountain. Baker chipped in 8.
“Moriarty’s a really strong, fast team, they’re well-coached and we suffered a little bit under the pressure,” East Mountain head coach Jeanne Woodfin said, noting that she saw a lot of positives from the loss: “The girls worked hard the whole time and they never dropped their heads.”
In their win over Aztec, the Lady Pintos started the game with a scorching 18-0 run that was propelled by three layups from Aneesa Chavez, a pair of jumpers by Marez, a jumper and a 3pointer by Segura, and a layup by Hannah Beukelman.
The Lady Pintos hit 8 of 12 shots in the opening period and held Aztec scoreless until the final 30 seconds of the stanza.
Payton Edwards opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer and added a layup 20 seconds later. Chavez hit a pair of baskets, including one where she stole the ball and took it the length of the court for a fast-break layup to help lift the Pintos to a 29-11 lead at halftime.
“We were ready, I mean, we didn’t really know about Aztec because we haven’t played them since my freshman year,” Chavez said. “But we knew we had to start off strong and just do our best, work together as a team.”
Chavez opened the second half with consecutive layups to boost the Pintos’ lead to 20 points which they maintained the rest of the game.
Chavez scored a game-high 19 points, Payton Edwards added 11 points, and Segura had 8 points and eight rebounds. Marez chipped in 4 points; Beukelman scored 3 and grabbed seven rebounds.
“We did really good tonight,” Moriarty head coach Erin Edwards said after the Aztec win. “We still have a lot to learn, we still have a lot to grow, to come together, but we’re definitely on the right track.”