Texico girls prevail

TEXICO — For Texico’s girls basketball team, winning a state championship will mean climbing over really good 2A schools.

Pecos is one such really good 2A school. So, Texico’s 55-53 home victory over the Lady Panthers on Saturday may bode well for the Lady Wolverines in states, and in the District 7-2A championships, too. By edging district foe Pecos on Jasmine Davalos’ late-game turnaround mid-range jumper, the Lady Wolves proved themselves capable of beating both a district and state powerhouse with just one victory.

At this stage of the season, is Texico as good as it needs to be to go out and compete for postseason championships? Perhaps not quite, based on what head coach Richard Luscombe said after the game. But Saturday’s victory seemed at least an indication that the Lady Wolverines (18-3, 3-0 district) are close.

“I do think we have a chance,” Davalos said. “We’ve just got to get back in the gym and work on the stuff that we need to get better at. Just keep working to get to the point to be the team that we need to be.”

“They’ve got some really good athletes,” Luscombe said of Pecos. “I thought they really showed some weaknesses in us defensively. I didn’t think we did a real good job of keeping them away from the basket. ... But it’s a big win for us, big win for us in district. And now we’ll continue to work and see if we can iron out a few of those problems.”

Any problems on Saturday seemed to disappear when Davalos buried her jumper with 4.8 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.

That was after things had become pretty dicey for the Lady Wolverines. With not much more than 30 seconds to go in the fourth, Texico had a 53-49 lead and the ball. Pecos’ Faith Flores, however, came up with a steal and the ball soon found its way to Flores’ teammate Brittney Martinez who sent it to Cassie Muller who shot and missed from the right elbow.

Trinity Herrera grabbed the offensive board, made the follow and was fouled, giving her the chance for a three-point play with 29.2 seconds left. Herrera made the free throw to draw Pecos within 53-52.

Davalos lofted an inbound pass cross court to Ashley Hill, who was fouled on a layup attempt. Though Hill wound up leading the Wolves with 17 points, neither of her ensuing free-throw attempts would drop, and with 26.9 seconds left, Texico’s lead was still 53-52.

After drawing a foul on the other end, Muller reported to the line with 18.9 seconds left. But she hit just the first attempt, making it a 53-all game as Texico’s Riley Rohrbach rebounded the missed second shot.

Following a Wolverines timeout with 13.9 seconds to play in the fourth, Texico went to work. Davalos inbounded to Rohrbach who dished to Baylee Sours who fed the ball back to Davalos.

“I wasn’t open at first,” Davalos recalled. “Baylee was behind me and said, ‘Jaz, go up. Shoot it.’ And that’s when I just shot the ball.”

Davalos turned toward the basket, shot, and nailed the mid-range jumper to give Texico a 55-53 advantage.

“It was kind of in the moment,” Davalos said.

The clock was reset to 6.2 seconds, but Pecos still had to go the length of the court. Muller inbounded to Herrera who pushed the ball up quickly and launched a running bank shot.

Herrera’s attempt was off as the buzzer sounded. The Lady Wolverines had prevailed.

“It’s a big win. They’re a good team,” Davalos said. “It’s a good win for us. A district game — they’re always great to win.”