Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Clovis junior Blake Muscato protects the ball as he drives the lane between El Paso Americas defenders Jonathan Castaneda and Jaden Andrus.
Clovis senior Malik Phillips goes up for a layup against El Paso Americas junior Christian Martinez in the fourth quarter of Friday's game at Rock Staubus Gymnasium.
CLOVIS — Through Friday, Clovis’ boys basketball team was 2-for-2 last week.
The Wildcats hosted a very solid Americas team from El Paso late Friday afternoon and broke open a close game to win 61-48.
Three days after a lopsided victory over area rival Portales, the Wildcats had gone 2-0 for the week heading into Saturday night’s home game against Rio Rancho.
Still a reasonable nine-point difference at halftime and just a seven-point margin early in the third quarter Friday, Clovis broke into double digits soon after and stayed there the rest of the way, improving to 4-3 as Saturday’s Rio Rancho game loomed.
“I think we’re a good team,” Clovis head coach Jaden Isler said. “I don’t think this team is even near where we can get to this season, that’s what strikes me. But right now we fight hard enough and we trust each other enough and we’re unselfish enough to compete with anybody. I think we can win any game we’re in, and I think our guys believe that too, it’s just going out and doing it on a night-in and night-out basis. We’re just going to try to be consistent, try to win every game we can and try to execute our game plan each night.”
Dawson’s streak
Clovis started Friday’s game fast, thanks in large part to senior guard Dewayne Dawson, who scored 12 points on four treys in the first quarter.
“We knew we needed to try to push tempo, and Dewayne had a great first quarter for us and really got us moving early,” Isler said. “And I thought that was a big spark to start the game off.”
Dawson’s three-point streak accounted for 57 percent of Clovis’ first-quarter offense and helped the Wildcats take a 21-11 lead by period’s end.
Americas narrowed it just a bit in the second quarter, trailing 30-21 by halftime. And a jumper from Americas forward Damien Vincente brought the Trail Blazers to within 30-23 early in the third.
On Clovis’ next possession, senior center Bryce Cabeldue found his way to the foul line, and though both of Cabeldue’s attempts initially seemed like they were going in, each spun around and out. However, his teammate Mason Figueroa snared the offensive rebound when the second shot spun off, and Figueroa soon drew a foul, then hit a pair of free throws to make it a 32-23 game with 6:29 left in the third quarter.
On the Wildcats’ next possession, Ro Morgan scored on a putback and was fouled. After Morgan completed the three-point play from the line, Clovis was ahead 35-23.
A driving scoop by the Trail Blazers’ Jordan Hernandez brought Americas within 10, but Clovis then scored five straight — on another three-point play finished at the line by Morgan, soon followed by a steal and layup from Malik Phillips — to give the Wildcats a 40-25 lead with plenty of time still remaining in the third quarter.
From then on Americas was never closer than 11 points down. Three different times in the fourth quarter Clovis led by 18.
Considering the Trail Blazers were a 12-win squad on the way into Rock Staubus Gymnasium, Isler was happy Clovis had sent them back to El Paso still a 12-win squad.
“Americas is a good team,” Isler said, “and they’ve played a tough schedule. So we respected them coming in; they’ve held a lot of good teams to very little points. So we knew it was going to be a tough game, we knew we’d have to get the tempo moving a little bit.”
After Saturday night’s game against Rio Rancho, the Wildcats were off through Christmas and were scheduled to open their holiday tournament against Piedra Vista this coming Thursday, beginning at 7 p.m.
