The Ignacio Bobcats boys’ and girls’ teams both walked out of the Mancos Performance Center on Friday evening with big wins.
In the varsity opener, the Lady Bobcats (6-2) jumped out to a 17-3 first-quarter lead over Mancos and rode the momentum into halftime up 31-6.
“We just couldn’t score,” said Mancos head coach Mallory Morgan. “We couldn’t buy a basket, we couldn’t make a block shot. That was tough on us.”
In the third quarter, the Lady Blue Jays had trouble even getting a shot, turning the ball over before they had a chance to set the offense.
Ignacio used the turnovers to start on a 14-0 run and led by 40 to start the fourth.
Although the Lady Blue Jays outscored the Lady Bobcats 14-12 in the final frame, the deficit was too large to overcome, and Ignacio ran away with a 63-25 win.
Brittney Peacock led the Lady Blue Jays with 10 points, but Mancos got scoring from only two other players, as Nichole Hess added nine and Jessica Gutierrez chipped in six.
The Lady Bobcats got scoring contributions from all nine team members, led by Hilda Garcia’s 17 points.
“It’s just a matter of everybody being on the same page all night long,” Morgan said. “We can’t have one person show up against a team like that, because it’s not going to happen. They’ve got a lot of weapons, so that’s hard.”
After a Jan. 9 loss in Center and Tuesday’s game against Ignacio, the Lady Blue Jays are now 3-4 on the season with a home game against Norwood (9-1) on Thursday.
“It’s just a matter of coming out of the locker room and playing all four quarters,” said Morgan. “And we just haven’t done that yet.”
Both the Mancos Blue Jays (3-4) and Ignacio Bobcats (8-0) were down a player in the boys varsity contest.
Mancos lost leading scorer Ro Paschal (18.5 ppg) to an ankle injury in the loss to Center on Jan. 9, and Ignacio senior Anthony Manzanares was forced to sit out after being ejected in a game against Montezuma-Cortez on the same evening.
Mancos head coach Rodney Cox said that the absence of Paschal and Manzanares didn’t change the team’s game plan against the Bobcats.
“That’s 2A basketball,” he said. “Somebody is going to get hurt, somebody is going to be sick – so the other kids have to step up.”
Ignacio took advantage of four early Mancos turnovers to jump out to an 11-2 lead, and the Bobcats closed the quarter on a 7-0 run to lead 21-5.
Mancos began the second quarter on an 8-0 run – with a bucket from Caleb Yoder and six-straight from Andrew Christensen – and the Blue Jays would get within seven points after a nifty reverse layup by Andrew Plunkett with three minutes remaining in the half.
Ignacio extended its lead to 38-24 at half, and Mancos struggled to score in the second half.
Ignacio’s lead swelled to 20 midway through the third and they ended the quarter up by 30.
The Bobcats finished it off by outscoring Mancos 17-11 in the fourth to stay undefeated on the season, winning 78-42.
Tucker Ward led Ignacio with 23 points and Wyatt Hayes and Nicholas Herrera each added 14.
Christensen and Adrian Hernandez led the Blue Jays with 12 apiece, Plunkett scored eight, Caleb Yoder added six and Griff Huver finished with four.
“I thought Andrew Christensen played really well,” Cox said after the game. “Adrian, that’s the best he’s played for us. That was really, really nice to see. Caleb Yoder had a good game for us and the Hoovers played really well.”
With two games rescheduled for this week, the Blue Jays will stay busy with three games in five days.
First, they’ll host Bayfield (3-6) on Tuesday and Norwood (7-3) on Thursday, before traveling to Ridgway (5-2) on Saturday.