The Montezuma-Cortez Panthers (3-9) opened Southwestern League play against Grand Junction Central (12-3) on Friday and Grand Junction (12-4) on Saturday.
Central junior Kyle Blair was an obvious focal point of the Panthers defense on Friday evening. Entering the contest as the team’s leading scorer and averaging over 15 points per game, M-CHS head coach Mike Hall had defenders swarming Blair from the jump.
“You just can’t let him have the ball,” Hall said.
Daniel Fernandez and Nate Baker hounded Blair in the first quarter, holding him to just three points. And Baker took a charge with four seconds left in the quarter to set up a Jasen Engel 3-pointer at the buzzer to end the first quarter down 18-11.
The Panthers defense performed well, and held Blair to seven points in the game, but they couldn’t put it together offensively and went to the half down 33-26.
“I thought defensively we played well,” Hall said. “Offensively we struggled tonight. Missing open layups, turning the ball over, that was our problem.”
The Panthers started the third quarter in a rush, and quick shots and poor passes led to turnovers and easy fastbreak points for the Warriors.
Central ended the third on an 18-7 run, and the Warriors continued to build their lead in the fourth to go on to win 62-42.
“Our turnovers, we’ve just got to limit them, and we’ll get there,” Hall said. “A lot of it is our young kids, and they’re figuring it out. It was just the turnovers, that’s what hurt us bad.”
The Panthers were led by Luis Perry’s 14 points, Jasen Engel finished with eight, Fernandez scored seven and Obed Simental added six.
M-CHS played Grand Junction closer on Saturday – entering the fourth quarter trailing by five – but turnovers again came back to hurt the Panthers.
Grand Junction senior Jake Wilcox scored 10 of his game-high 28 points in the first quarter to put the Tigers up 17-9 after one, but Luis Perry brought the Panthers back in it with 11 second-quarter points.
The Panthers put together a run to end the third quarter down 55-51, but fourth-quarter turnovers would be their downfall.
“We just turned it over a lot,” Hall said. “Our guards turned it over a lot and quit attacking. They stepped their defense up a lot and took it out of our guards hands and we just turned it over.”
The Tigers capitalized on the Panthers’ miscues and finished the game on a 23-11 run to win, 78-62
Jasen Engel and Perry led M-CHS with 16 points apiece, Simental scored 10 and Aron Engel and Fernandez added five each.
The Panthers will look to capture their first league win on Tuesday in a home game against Durango (8-4).
“They are very aggressive at attacking the front of the rim,” Hall said of the Demons. “They’re dribble-drive all the time, just attacking. They’re going to be tough.”
