Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Clovis boys suffer first district loss

Fall at Carlsbad by 10

Clovis’ boys suffered their first district loss of the season three nights earlier, coming out on the business end of a 45-35 score against Carlsbad on the road.

The Carlsbad Cavemen ended their district winless streak and handed the Clovis Wildcats their first district loss of the season on Tuesday. The two teams met on Jan. 29 to start out Class 5 District 4 play in Clovis with the Wildcats winning by four. This time the Cavemen returned the favor with a 45-35 victory.

“I don’t think we were ready to play tonight,” Isler said Tuesday. “I think our kids were overconfident coming in. I felt like we were too loose on the bus. We’ve got some growing up to do. We’ve had some success this year that they’re not used to having.”

Conversely, the Cavemen posted their first district win of the season.

“Our gameplan was spot-on,” Carlsbad head coach Jamaal Brown said Tuesday. “We went back and looked at the film (from the first Clovis game on Feb. 1). I’ll give credit to my assistant coach Matt Enloe. He really dissected that thing and really took it possession-by-possession. He was able to come up with some tendencies. We gave them to the kids and put together the right gameplan. I think our kids executed perfectly tonight.”

Carlsbad relied on limiting Clovis in its offensive possessions, never allowing any of the Wildcats to get on a scoring hot streak.

Carlsbad led the game from start to finish, as the Wildcats never tied the game nor took the lead. The Cavemen scored 12 points in each of the first three quarters and didn’t attempt any risky shots in the fourth when the game was in hand.

Offensively, the Cavemen allowed the game clock to tick down considerably before attempting most of their shots, including the final offensive play of the first half, when Josh Sillas dribbled the ball for more than a minute before running the final play.

Defensively, Carlsbad didn’t allow Clovis to use its size and roster to its full advantage. The Cavemen were able to deny the Wildcats several alley-oop lob attempts and didn't give Clovis many second-chance point opportunities.

With two minutes left in the fourth quarter, Carlsbad led 39-33 when senior guard Pat Espinoza was sent to the free throw line. He missed his first shot but made the second to put Carlsbad up by seven.

On the ensuing inbounds play, Espinoza stepped in front of the pass and added two more points off the following layup to put his team up 42-33. Carlsbad’s defense held up and didn’t allow Clovis to score again until the final five seconds of the game when the Cavemen were already up by 12.

“They’ve got to learn how to handle success along with handling losing,” Isler said of his team. “I don’t think we handled our success over the past couple of weeks very well tonight coming into this game.”