Demonettes get 'must win' against Los Lunas
Jan. 22—There are still five weeks to go in the high school basketball regular season.
For Santa Fe High's girls team, the playoffs have already begun.
Written on a white board in the team's locker room inside Toby Roybal Memorial Gymnasium before Friday night's home game against Los Lunas were the words, "must win."
Must win, as in, there is no longer any room for error. Must win, as in, losing is not an option.
"Yeah, we talked about it a lot. Over and over and over again, all week," said Demonettes guard Maci Cordova. "We all knew what this game meant. What they all mean."
Cordova and Larisha Diaz each scored 12 points to lead Santa Fe High to a 46-36 win, which puts the team right where it wants to be as it heads into the final full week of January. At 10-7 overall and 1-1 in District 5-5A, the Demonettes know the writing's on the wall for landing a Class 5A state tournament berth in five weeks.
With 5-5A looking like, at best, a two-bid district and front-runner Albuquerque High poised to run away and hide, the runner-up will almost certainly have to run the table against the district's other teams to land an at-large bid to the 16-team postseason.
In some ways, Friday's victory was a signature win that, in any other year, would have been a huge upset. Now 3-14 overall, Los Lunas is but a shadow of its recent self. Since 2013, the Tigers have played in the state finals, winning five times. A new coach and the loss of several key players have ushered in a rebuilding era for Los Lunas.
A win over the Tigers is still big — and Demonettes coach Nate Morris knows it. Coaching on the sidelines from a barstool he broke out a few games ago, he said the entire regular season could come down to his club's visit to Los Lunas on Feb. 8.
"If we can go on a little 8-0 run [against the rest of the district] and get to that second game against Albuquerque High, you never know," he said. "But that second game down there against [Los Lunas] is what it's all about. It might all come down to that."
Friday's game featured eight lead changes and two ties — all of them in the first half. While Los Lunas dominated the glass, the Demonettes put on a defensive clinic with their full-court press. Out-rebounded 36-18, they won the game by forcing 25 turnovers. Two of them came in the first half when the Tigers couldn't get the ball inbounds on time, while two others came on 10-second violations for not crossing center court.
"When it works like that, it's a beautiful thing to see," Morris said. "But that's what we wanted to do, come out and play aggressive and do the things we know we're good at. One of those things is using our press to make things happen."
With the score tied at 26 at halftime, Santa Fe High put the game away with a lopsided third quarter. Los Lunas went 0-for-8 from the field and managed just two points.
Zuriel Vigil put the Demonettes up for good with a low-post bucket just 32 seconds into the quarter. Cordova then scored a bucket while being fouled, making the free throw to open things up.
With Cordova, Diaz and Olivia Montoya making it a goal to be more assertive by attacking the basket, Cordova said it had more to do with the atmosphere than anything else.
"It was the intensity, the energy from the players and the bench and in the bleachers," she said. "You could feel it."
Diaz and Vigil combined for 14 of the team's 15 points in the first quarter while Cordova and Montoya did all the scoring in the second quarter. What they didn't do, the defense did, as Los Lunas made just one shot from the field in the first 13 minutes of the second half.
They managed all that despite playing a second straight district game without senior leader Kabreya Garcia, not to mention a second straight game getting beaten badly in the rebounding category — something that can be overlooked so long as the defense plays the way it did on Friday.
"The best thing about that is it's not just the starters doing it," Morris said. "It's everybody. It's the bench players, it's a team effort. Everybody contributed tonight, and that's what a coach likes to see."
NOTES
Capital's loss to Albuquerque High on Friday leaves Santa Fe High in a three-way tie for second place in 5-5A, along with Capital and Los Lunas. A fourth team will join that mix on Saturday when Manzano plays Rio Grande. Everyone is trailing Albuquerque High, which is now 2-0 (10-6 overall) after Friday's 71-24 win over the Jaguars.
