Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
CLOVIS — The ball isn’t bouncing right for the struggling, young Clovis High girls basketball team.
Highland, also a young team, flashed more size and athleticism and made enough plays to hold off the feisty Lady Wildcats 56-51 on Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the Plateau Holiday Classic at Rock Staubus Gym.
Highland (4-3) will face Farmington, a 39-33 winner over Amarillo Caprock, in a championship semifinal game scheduled for 12:50 p.m. today. The Lady Cats (4-7), who are playing the late girls game on each of the tournament’s three nights, take on Caprock in a 5:50 p.m. consolation semifinal.
Junior guard-forward Natazanya Crespin had three 3-pointers and 18 points, leading three players in double figures for the Hornets (4-3), who survived a 15-0 first-half run by the Lady Cats which wiped out an early 10-3 deficit.
“We’re so young as a basketball team; we only have one senior,” Highland coach Lonnie Neal said. “It’s trial by fire; we had a lot of turnovers that we shouldn’t have had.”
The difference, primarily, was the size factor. Junior Esperanza Crespin, who finished with 13 points ,and sophomore Brooklyn Crawford, who had 12, combined for 11 of the Hornets’ 16 fourth-quarter points to help put the game away.
“I think tonight we had a lot more offense rebounds, and second-chance points,” Neal said.
Two 3-pointers by junior guard Teya Morris and one by senior post Monay Phillips sparked the Lady Cats’ early run. Morris capped the surge with two free throws early in the second quarter, making it 18-10.
Highland, though, limited CHS (4-7) to four points the rest of the half and took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Crespin with 21 seconds left in the half.
Morris finished with a career-high 29 points, including 8-of-11 from the foul line, while Phillips added 10. But the Lady Cats had only four points through three quarters from the rest of the team in dropping their fifth in a row.
“We just shot ourselves in the foot all night,” CHS coach Jeff Reed said. “Highland gave us tons of opportunities, but we just couldn’t take advantage.”
