Lady Pintos fall to Hope Christian—other games this week shelved by Covid

Moriarty’s girls’ basketball team lost its first game in more than a month this week but at least the team got to play— several other area high school games got shelved because of Covid.

The Lady Pintos battled but came up short on Jan. 25 at Albuquerque’s Hope Christian High School.

Moriarty (12-3, 1-0) had been on a roll, having not lost since Dec. 18. The Lady Pintos were riding a six-game winning streak going into the matchup with the Hope Christian Lady Huskies.

But Moriarty may have gone into the game a little too comfortable, head coach Erin Edwards said.

The Lady Pintos fell behind the Lady Huskies in the first quarter. Moriarty cut the deficit in the second quarter and traded leads with the Lady Huskies throughout the game but Hope ultimately came out on top 63-59.

“We were right there, we outscored them in the second quarter,” Edwards said.

Edwards said the Lady Pintos committed 20 turnovers and missed more than 30 shots, but the real reason for the loss was inadequate defense.

“We knew what we needed to do but we just didn’t play defense—it wasn’t our offense, it was our defense,” Edwards said, adding, “It was a wake-up call, we’re ready for districts now.”

Moriarty’s girls’ and boys’ basketball teams were both scheduled to play district games against Taos this week, but those games got shelved due to players on the Taos team testing positive for Covid.

East Mountain High School also canceled its Jan. 25 boys’ and girls’ home basketball games against Laguna-acoma because of Laguna players testing positive, and Estancia High School postponed its Jan. 25 home games against the Native American Community Academy for the same reason.

East Mountain athletic director Kasi Giovenco said she initially received an email from Laguna-acoma stating they may not be able to play, and then got another email Jan. 24 confirming that they had positive cases, the school was in remote learning, and they were temporarily shutting down sports.

“That’s the only varsity game we’ve had to cancel due to the Covid issue,” Giovenco said.

“It’s hard cuz every school’s different, everyone’s situation is different,” Estancia athletic director Stewart Burnett said. “There are schools that are remote. We had our own [Covid] spike and we dealt with that. All you can do is take a deep breath and do the best you can. We’ll get these games with NACA rescheduled.”

Giovenco said the Laguna games probably won’t be rescheduled because they weren’t district games.

Moriarty’s athletic director Joe Anaya said the school has rescheduled this week’s boys’ and girls’ district games against Taos to dates in February.

“They called us up and it was the same story, they said, ‘We’ve got kids who are positive,’” Anaya said about Taos.

Moriarty had similar situations with a previously scheduled game against Gallup and a scheduled game against district rival Los Alamos. “The Gallup game got rescheduled to February 2nd,” Anaya said. He added that the district games also must be made up. “You have to find time to play those games.”

Spectators are currently not allowed at Moriarty or East Mountain home games, which is a decision by a school or school districts, not a mandate from the New Mexico Activities Association, according to NMAA executive director, Sally Marquez.

Estancia has been allowing fans at its home games and requiring them to wear masks. Burnett said he will continue revising schedules whenever he has to— even if it’s on a weekly basis.

“I think by the time we get to spring we’ll be ok,” Burnett said. “It’s not nearly as frustrating as it was two years ago.”

Estancia’s boys and girls played at Albuquerque’s Menaul School on Jan. 27; East Mountain’s boys hosted Socorro Jan. 27, and Moriarty’s boys are scheduled to host Pojoaque Valley on Jan. 28.