La Cueva, St. Pius, Pojoaque girls all repeat at state basketball championships.
Repeats were the order of the day as the girls basketball season came to a close in March with the state tournaments.
All three of the state champions in the largest classes were teams that won titles in 2008 as La Cueva, St. Pius and Pojoaque all became back-to-back champs.
La Cueva won the girls Class 5A championship for a second year in a row by knocking off Cibola 51-43. The Bears were led in scoring by senior Nikki Ingram, who tallied 17 points, while teammate Jamie Parker tallied 12 in the game played at The Pit in Albuquerque.
"I thought Cibola had a quality team, but with our experience I thought it was our game to lose," said La Cueva coach Greg Berger, who drew confidence from last year's win in the 5A finale. "Like the game against Eldorado, we were down at halftime, but we perservered."
Cibola, led by sophomore Amber Battle's 23, got out strong by registering a 10-2 run.
The Bears, in fact, didn't connect on a shot from the floor until Brianna Leitch made one with just over a minute left in the first quarter to make the score 12-6 in favor of the Cougars. The first four points for La Cueva came from the free throw line.
"It kind of takes time to get into the flow at The Pit," Ingram said. "You just have to get used to it.'
The eventual victors got their first lead in the game by scoring seven straight points midway through the second period.
Retaliating with four straight points of its own, Cibola took back the lead before halftime and maintained it throughout the third period.
La Cueva took a one-point advantage when a Cibola turnover led to a bucket from Brittany McIntosh to start the fourth quarter.
The next two field goals from the Bears came through efficient interior passing. Leitch, on a pass in the paint from Nikki Ingram, made the score 36-33. Then Leitch assisted McIntosh for a basket with 5:50 remaining for a five point margin, the Bears' largest of the game.
"The experience helps," said La Cueva forward Taylor Tvede, a senior who scored seven points. "We know what to do - that's all there is to it."
With two minutes on the clock, Cibola made the score 43-39 on a bucket by Battle. But free throws sealed the game for La Cueva, which scored seven of the next 11 points and all from the charity stripe.
The Bears came into the game as the fifth-seed in the Class 5A girls tournament. La Cueva, however, wasn't an underdog as Cibola had only been seeded 11th for the draw.
Cibola (19-13) could rightly blame turnovers as the primary reason its Cinderella run came to an end. The Cougars had 14 turnovers at halftime compared to La Cueva's five. Cibola finished with 24 to the Bears' 11.
"I was really not happy with our turnovers in the first half. I thought we really weren't patient on offense and some kids did some things offensively we didn't do all year long," Cibola coach Lori Stephenson said. "But La Cueva had outstanding defense and maybe forced out kids into some stuff they really didn't know how to handle."
Stephenson, who was part of three state championship teams while a high school player at Kirtland Central, led her team to upset wins over Clovis and Sandia in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the 5A playoffs.
"I think my kids played pretty loose throughout the whole tournament," she added. "It definitely helps to have experience. But you know what? Now we have some experience in a championship game and hopefully we can build on that."
Although not in the state's largest classification, St. Pius in Class 4A and Pojoaque in Class 3A both could certainly lay claims to being the best team in the state regardless.
St. Pius, whose only setback during the year was an early-season loss to Eldorado, finished 28-1 with a 43-32 victory over Roswell High at The Pit. Senior Alix Membreno led the Sartans with 13 points and 14 rebounds from her point guard position.
The Sartans finished with a 23-game winning streak and a resume that included two victories apiece over La Cueva and Cibola, the finalists in Class 5A.
As for Pojoaque, nothing backs up bragging like a perfect record.
The Elkettes won their second straight Class 3A championship by beating Portales 44-38 in the title game to finish with a sparkling 31-0 record. Jackie Bartleson scored a game-high 15 points to lead Pojoaque, which pulled out to a 15-point lead in the third quarter that Portales, led by Tara Johnson's 11 points, could never overcome.
In Class 2A, Navajo Prep (21-8) grabbed its first title since its glory days of the 1990s by beating Lordsburg 72-54 on Friday (March 13) as senior Nicole Crisp led the way with 23 points. Her older sister Rainy, who was part of a run of four titles in five years from 1995 to 1999, coached the Eagles to this year's championship.
"I remember coming and watching. When the buzzer went off, everybody just running on the court, mauling the coach and just screaming and yelling," said Nicole Crisp, recalling the days of watching her sister play. "Taking pictures. I just remember thinking 'They must be really happy; I wonder how that feels to be the best in Class 2A.'"
After one championship appearance in basketball and and two in volleyball, without the ultimate success of winning, Crisp and her fellow Eagles finally found out after controlling the title game from start to finish.
"I always wanted the girls to experience what I experience as a player," said Rainy Crisp, who was part of three Navajo Prep title-winning teams in the late 1990s.
Meanwhile, youth had its moments, but experienced seized the day in the Class 1A girls basketball championship.
With four determined seniors, whose resume included two prior state titles in years past, Cimarron overtook district rival Des Moines 58-53 in the last minute to grab the state title at The Pit.
"I think this one means a lot more to me because it was our last state championship," said Rams' senior guard Whitley Coca, who was also on the '06 and '07 title-winning squads.
Fellow senior Brooke Knox got the game-winning points when she hit a pair of free throws with 35 seconds left. Coca, Knox, Ashlee Giglia and Rosario Serna were remnants of the back-to-back title years who finished out their high school career with another crown.
"You'd look at the seniors like they were crazy, because they were crying and trying to get us up," Knox said. "Now I know where they were coming from."
Cimarron (26-1) actually trailed for most of the contest as young sharpshooters from Des Moines (20-9) helped the Demons get to a ten-point lead twice in the second quarter.
Des Moines' freshmen Cassidy Doherty and Jenna Gilbert each drained a pair of threes - and sometimes from very long range.
"I know Des Moines can shoot the ball, but I was a little surprised at how far out they were doing it," said Cimarron coach Patricia LeDoux, whose team beat the Demons for a fifth time this season. "I think they kind of wanted to pull us out, so they could get it to their forwards inside."
"They had a lead on us the whole game and that kind of freaked us out," said Coca, who finished with 29 points.
The Rams first lead since the first quarter came when hit a jumper with 2:38 left in the third.
Gilbert, who finished with nine points, was asked if she enjoyed the experience on the big stage.
Through tears, the Demons' frosh answered.
"Yeah. I plan to be back."
