BAYFIELD – Jasen Engel couldn’t be stopped in the paint and scored a game-high 26 points to propel the Montezuma-Cortez Panthers to a 62-51 victory Saturday against Ignacio High School at the Southwest Classic in Bayfield.

“Jasen is so physical and strong he causes a lot of mismatches,” Panthers head coach Michael Hall said. “When he’s on like that he’s hard to stop, and when he gets the ball in the post like that he’s aggressive to the basket and he’s a good player down there.”

On Friday night, Montezuma-Cortez defeated longtime rival Durango High School in the first game of the 2018 Southwest Classic to earn a 68-46 victory at Bayfield High School.

Friday night’s grueling game against Bayfield affected the Bobcats, who started the game in a fog and struggled to find a rhythm on offense.

“We talked about how after a big game, win or lose, you put a lot of emotion into it, but if you think about it, if you want to win district and regionals you’ve got to win two games in a row,” Ignacio head coach Chris Valdez said. “You have to be able to play those back-to-backs. I don’t care if we only have five or six legitimate varsity players, we’ve got to play at that level or we’re not going to win.”

Engel did most of the damage for the Panthers in the paint with 21 points in the first half to help the Panthers to a 37-26 halftime lead.

The Bobcats cut the deficit to one point a couple of times in the third quarter but could never take the lead.

Cordell Baer finished with 13 points for the Panthers.

Johnny Valdez led Ignacio with 17 points, Lawrence Duffin-Valdez had 14 and Kai Roubideaux added 11.

For only the second time in school history and the first time in 69 years, the Bayfield High School boys basketball team took down La Plata County rival Durango High School.

The Wolverines (4-4) locked the Demons (2-8) down on defense and found openings for easy buckets to pick up a 63-33 victory during the Southwest Classic on Saturday at BHS

kschneider@durangoherald.com