By Eric Butler
MaxPreps.com
Girls Basketball: Trojans Take 5A Girls Title
After losing in the 2006 state championship game to Gallup, you couldn't ask for a worse way for the Mayfield Trojans to head into the off-season.
Only weeks later, star player Carissa McGee was arrested for stabbing her mother and older sister multiple times. When McGee headed to incarceration, the Trojans went back out onto the court for summer ball.
Basketball, at that point, was part of the healing process for the Las Cruces school. While there's still residue from McGee's arrest, the prescription of hoops for the Mayfield players proved to be as ultimate of a recovery from the incident as possible - especially when the Trojans won the Class 5A girls basketball championship on Saturday (Mar. 10) by beating Clovis 61-42.
Though Mayfield had been in the state title game for each of the past four seasons, it was the first time since 2004 that the Trojans had won.
After the game, Mayfield coach George Maya recalled the tough year that his team endured between its most recent championship game appearances.
"When this happened before the summer, people said 'They can't win it,'" Maya said. "But we had a great, great summer and stayed together. That's the important thing - staying together."
"We cried all along the way," he added, in a post-game press conference at The Pit in Albuquerque. "But to see the smiles on these girls faces, it's all worth it."
This would have been McGee's senior season, but the Trojans did bring back one huge returnee from last year's runner-up squad. Senior Madison Spence, who has committed to play at New Mexico State next year, scored 31 points as Mayfield held control of the championship contest from almost the opening tip.
"We played the way we can play. We got a lead and just had to hold it the rest of the way," Spence said.
"We knew going in that Madison is the best player in the state and, wow, did she prove it. She put on a great offensive performance tonight," said Clovis coach Miles Watters. "We just didn't have any answer for her."
In the girls Class 4A finale, Aztec earned its first state championship trophy by beating Kirtland Central 52-46 as senior Patricia Malouff scored 23 points to lead the Tigers. The two teams, out of the same district, had met four times previous to the title tilt - with each winning twice.
Kirtland, which has won 17 state championships, ran out to an early 14-2 lead. But the Broncos, led by Dayon Hall-Jones' 14 points, gradually saw their rivals creep back into the game. With a pair of free throws by Mikala Brooks late in the third quarter, Aztec finally caught Kirtland and took its first lead since the opening bucket. Down the stretch, the Tigers were clutch from the free throw line - hitting all eight attempts in the last minute-and-a-half.
"I've played with these girls since we were in the fourth grade. Our whole entire life, we've always said that one year we're going to win a state championship," Malouff said.
"Oh my gosh, this means so much. We've been working three years for this," said Aztec's Charity Gillespie, who came up clutch with 13 points. "I heard them (the Broncos) talking and saying they had to shut Patricia down. All of us knew that we had to step it up."
Another team that won its first state championship was Hope Christian. Ironically, the Huskies moved up a classification to do it. Last year's Class 2A runner-up took the 3A title by beating perennial power Portales, 43-40, as Hope was led by sophomore Andrea Torgrimson and her game-high 16 points.
In the 2A finale, Texico won its first championship since 2002 as the Wolverines beat Penasco, 41-38. Texico's Faith Martin hit a pair of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter as her team tied and then went ahead of the Panthers.
The Class 1A championship went to Cimarron, who won back-to-back crowns as a result. The Rams graduated much of their 2006 title-winning squad, but behind 13 points from Whitley Coca turned the trick again by beating Cliff, 40-29.
Boys Basketball: Williams Leads Rio Rancho To Title
Manzano was trying to duplicate its Class 5A boys championship, but the Monarchs fell victim to Rio Rancho in front of around 15,000 fans at The Pit. It was the first title for the Rams, who came back from a 12-point deficit to beat Manzano 75-65.
Rio Rancho was led by Marcus Williams, who scored 30 points, and Daniel Steffensen, who added 20 in the title game victory.
In Class 4A boys, St. Pius did win its second title in a row as the Sartans knocked off Capital 62-58.
In the championship game, the Sartans rarely led until the last two minutes and the contest seemed to be heading down a familiar path of an earlier contest - one that took place during St. Pius' tough opening stretch of the season.
On January 5th, the Sartans played Capital and lost at home 56-47 and gave St. Pius its eighth loss in the first 11 games. Segura, naturally enough, had mentally gone over that game leading up to, and during, the 4A title contest.
"They backcut us to death that first game, so we were almost in a pseudo-zone than a man," said Segura, who overtly waived on the St. Pius faithful at The Pit in the closing moments.
"If you're going to do it, do it in the last two minutes of a state title game. We want to make sure they were in a tough environment to score - as tough as we could make it," Segura said. "I'll say this about our crowd - they've been real supportive all year. We'd asked them to come to big games, like Del Norte, and we kind of let them down. I'm glad we were kind of able to make up for that."
The Sartans were led by junior post Chris Johansen's 23 points and got 18 more from junior guard Paul Jessen. Josh Chavez, one of only three seniors on the roster, also contributed 13 to the victory.
In Class 3A, the St. Michael's boys also won back-to-back state crowns by beating Hope Christian 64-47 as the Horsemen were led by sophomore Jordan Romero's 18 points. Hope, consistently top-ranked throughout the season and victor over St. Mike's earlier in the year, got 16 points from Xavier Blount and 15 more from Zach Spangler in the loss.
It was big state tournament for one private school from Las Cruces as Mesilla Valley Christian's SonBlazers beat Penasco 53-51 for the Class 2A crown. Mesilla Valley was led by Dominic Marketto's 13 points while the Panthers got 30 from senior Bobby Richardson.
For the smallest classification, Gateway Christian from Roswell utilized a balanced attack to beat Dora 59-43 for the Class 1A title.
The victorious Warriors, led by 25 points from big sophomore Antonio Oaxaca, pulled away from a patient Coyotes' squad late in the game.
Gateway Christian also won the eight-man football championship in the fall and the 1A baseball title last spring. Senior guard Jevvon Hunter, who scored 10 points and yanked down 12 rebounds, said that the basketball title was the biggest accomplishment for his school.
"This is the hardest, because there's about 50 teams playing in basketball," Hunter said. "The numbers don't even compare, plus we've got extra games that we have to go through like winning three games here."
