Clovis tops Coyotes to move to 2-1 in district

CLOVIS - In golf they would call it the front nine. In District 4-5A basketball it's the front three.

Clovis High's boys basketball team wrapped up the first half of its district schedule Friday night, beating Roswell 64-49 at Rock Staubus Gymnasium. With that victory, the Wildcats had gone through the district's Carlsbad-Hobbs-Roswell sequence once, and will start it over again this Tuesday night when they begin their back three by hosting Carlsbad.

The 'Cats went 2-1 in their front three, which they finished with Friday's resounding victory that wasn't even as close as the 15-point margin indicated. Roswell closed the game on a 12-1 run after Clovis had put it way out of reach.

So the Wildcats go strong into the second half of district play.

"We're right where we need to be," Wildcats head coach Jaden Isler said. "Obviously you don't want to drop the game that we lost at Hobbs, but in our district, everybody's ranked within like 8 to 11 in the state. We have a really hard district where there's no off night, there are no easy wins in our district, so we've got to win our home games and we've got to try to steal games on the road. If we'll take care of home-court advantage - we have two out of the next three here - that gives us a really good shot to win or to tie for the district championship."

"At home we do really well," Clovis senior forward Ethan Gershon said. "I don't know what it is."

Both Roswell and Clovis were 1-1 in district coming into the Rock on Friday, and the Coyotes actually had more overall wins (16) than the Wildcats (15) at tip-off. So it was a big deal for the 'Cats to get a convincing win, even though the Coyotes were depleted.

"I'm proud of my guys," Roswell head coach Dude Burrola said. "We lost seven guys to disciplinary action, so we're missing three starters and kids that we need off the bench and some of our size."

The players available to Burrola did play hard throughout, but the Wildcats already had a 16-7 lead by the first quarter's end thanks to balanced scoring. Mason Figueroa had five points for Clovis in the opening quarter, with Dewayne Dawson scoring four of his team-high 17 in the period, Blake Muscato adding three, and Ro Morgan and Bryce Cabeldue scoring two each.

Clovis increased the lead to double digits in the second quarter, and though Roswell had a chance to get it back to single digits, the Coyotes were unable to do so. They had the ball trailing 28-18 but turned it over, and on the other end, a Dawson follow-up shot gave Clovis a 12-point advantage.

That was the margin at halftime (30-18) and it would never be less than 12 again.

The Wildcats quickly gained second-half momentum after Roswell couldn't score on the third quarter's opening possession. The Coyotes' Taymon Burrola missed inside thanks to tough defense from Cabeldue, and off the miss, Clovis went right on the fast break which ended with a Josiah Lombrana layup that made it a 14-point game.

On the ensuing Clovis possession after a Burrola free throw just over 30 seconds into the new half, Dawson buried a right-side trey to give the Wildcats a 35-19 advantage. Roswell didn't completely fall out of it yet, getting to within that 12-point range (43-31) late in the third quarter. But a left-side three by Malik Phillips and a Phillips free throw sandwiched around a Roswell foul shot made it a 47-32 game by quarter's end.

The fourth quarter's opening possession finished with a splash, as Lombrana sank a left-side trey to hand the Wildcats a 50-32 lead. Clovis' second possession of the quarter didn't yield any points, but the Wildcats' third possession ended with a Dawson trey, putting the game into 20-plus territory, 53-32.

"Size got us," Coach Burrola said. "They're big, and we didn't do a very good job boxing out. And when we did, they jumped over us and got rebounds, and I think that was the difference in the game. When you give up 25-30 offensive rebounds they're going to beat you."

The outcome was practically a forgone conclusion when Clovis took a 63-37 lead well into the fourth quarter. The Coyotes did go on that 12-1 run, but it was way too late.

"I thought we played pretty well," Isler said. "A little sluggish early on; we were scoring, but I didn't think our tempo offensively was great. Part of that was we've had some snow days and weren't able to practice a couple of days, and it took us a little bit to get into rhythm. But I thought our kids did a good job of getting the lead and holding the lead and pushing it up into the 20s. It gave us a chance to get some guys some minutes off the bench, and those minutes are always valuable."