Clovis boys win district opener

CLOVIS — Normally, a 52-48 win for the Clovis boys basketball team in its District 4-5A opener would be cause for excitement. In the case of Tuesday’s game at Rock Staubus Gymnasium, cautious optimism would be more appropriate.

The Wildcats did get that first district win, but they had to hold on after leading by 22 in the third quarter, so that tempered the excitement a little bit.

Still, the ’Cats are 1-0 in district. They’ll take it.

“Every district game is huge,” Clovis head coach Jaden Isler said. “However you can win ’em you gotta win ’em. And I thought our kids came out and had a really good first half. ... Our kids are starting to figure out how to start faster and we’re really playing good defense in the first halves of games right now. And that’s big.”

For Carlsbad (13-8 overall) it was the other way around — a slow offensive start before closing with a crackle.

“Yeah, basketball’s a game of runs and they had all the runs for the first 26 minutes,” Carlsbad head coach Jamaal Brown said. “The last six minutes of the game we were able to get some key stops and made a few buckets and made a pretty good run at ’em.”

Clovis (15-6 overall) had the first run, which gave the Wildcats enough momentum to build that big lead, a bit too big to squander in the time remaining. The ’Cats trailed 12-8 late in the first quarter before going on a 13-0 run. It began with consecutive Mason Figueroa baskets that tied the game, quickly followed by a pair of Jaden Phillips free throws that put Clovis ahead 14-12.

A fast-break layup from Dominick Urioste off a slick Figueroa feed made it 16-12 at quarter’s end.

Clovis’ Jacob Moon completed a three-point play at the line to begin the second-quarter scoring, and Anthony Gutierrez interrupted Carlsbad’s ensuing possession with a steal and layup to give the Wildcats a 21-12 lead.

Carlsbad’s Stevie Barlett scored to finally end his team’s drought, but Clovis outscored the Cavemen 13-3 for the remainder of the half and carried a 34-17 advantage into the lockerroom.

The Wildcats took their first 20-point lead of the night (38-18) with a Dewayne Dawson bucket more than halfway into the third quarter, and soon made it 40-18 on a Ro Morgan tip-in.

“You can’t get down that many points to a good team like Clovis,” Brown said. “Coach Isler’s doing a great job with those kids and they came out early and jumped on us.”

Carlsbad shaved its deficit to 42-25 by the end of the third quarter, and then in the fourth kept chipping and chipping and chipping away. It was 44-30 after a Josh Sillas left-side trey less than three minutes into the quarter. Two Sillas free throws and an Ayden Parent inside bucket later, the Cavemen had it down to 10.

After a pair of Bryce Cabeldue free throws gave Clovis a 46-34 advantage, Carlsbad went on an 8-2 run and closed to within six. A Jaden Phillips putback stretched Clovis’ lead to 50-42 with a little more than a minute to go, but the Wildcats then followed Carlsbad’s intentional fouls with too many clankers from the stripe. In a 43-second stretch ending with 26.7 seconds left, the ’Cats went 0-for-4 on freebies. Moon did go 1-for-2 from the line with 13.8 seconds remaining in the fourth to give Clovis a 51-45 edge, but the Wildcats fouled Sillas from three-point range on the other end, and when he sank all three free-throw attempts to give him 30 points on the night, it was a three-point game with 7.9 seconds left.

Clovis’ Ethan Gershon inbounded to Muscato, who was fouled near the Wildcats’ baseline with 6.5 seconds to play. Muscato, like Moon, went 1-for-2 from the line, making the first attempt which handed Clovis an all-important four-point lead in those closing seconds.

In the final 1:10, Clovis had gone 2-for-8 from the line and finished 14-of-25 (56 percent) overall.

The Wildcats, though, managed to survive.

“All these district games are going to be a battle,” Isler said. “ 20 is not enough points (to be ahead) anymore, not in today’s game with the three-point line being such a big factor. So 20-point leads aren’t near what they used to be. We’ve just got to do a good job of making free throws when we have leads in the fourth quarter and taking care of the ball a little bit and having a little better basketball IQ when it comes to having a lead and the ball.”

The Cavemen, meanwhile, hope they can play more complete games in the district matchups ahead. That, Brown says, begins with the guys on the sideline.

“We’ve got to find a way as a coaching staff to give these kids what they need in terms of scouting reports,” Brown said, “and give these kids enough keys that they can key on and go out and execute a good game plan.”