Texico boys improve to 18-0

LOVINGTON — Texico’s boys basketball team led Friday’s game at Lovington throughout, but didn’t get any real separation until the fourth quarter, finally pulling away for a 67-53 road win and improving to 18-0 as a result.

Foul trouble hampered Texico early in Friday’s game, especially in the second quarter.

“We just could never really get away from them, but we finally had some big buckets,” Texico head coach Ty Thatcher said.

One of those “big buckets” came late in the third quarter, as Cole Rohrbach made an up and under move that got him and his teammates fired up. “It was a big play for us,” Thatcher said.

And it fueled the Wolves in the fourth, where they outscored Lovington 21-10, with Nathan Phipps dropping in nine of his total 18 points during that period.

Dalton Thatcher paced the Wolverines with 22 points. Skyler Davis added 12 for Texico.

Lovington’s Gage Sandoval poured in a game-high 24 points, despite his team dropping to 10-9.

Texico will host Ruidoso today, with a 4 p.m. tipoff scheduled.