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Jones sparks IHS early

Bobcats’ pressure holds lead late

The pressure never stops when the Ignacio High School boys basketball team plays.

The Bobcats press until heir lead grows large enough to call it off. Every IHS guard hounds ball-handlers for steals. Its offense constantly moves and resets, probing for an open 3-pointer or a one-on-one opportunity in the post.

Dolores simply couldn’t keep up Thursday at the SunUte Community Center in Ignacio.

IHS (4-2, 1-0 San Juan League) built a 33-12 lead at halftime and stretched it to 66-31 by the end of the game.

“Their pressure gets us every year. We have to move the ball better against them,” Dolores head coach Larry Schwartz said. “Once Ignacio gets you into that onslaught, they’ve got you right where they want you.”

Junior point guard Wyatt Hayes led the charge on the defensive end, finishing with 10 steals to go along with his six points and eight assists.

“I try to take the ball away form him and get the offense going,” said Hayes, son of Cindy and Tim Hayes. “It’s good to get steals that lead to layups.”

Senior Adison Jones was his counterpart on the offensive end. Jones finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds for the double-double.

“Jones came out ready to go, and he seemed like he was a team leader,” IHS head coach Chris Valdez said. “He was everywhere.”

Especially early in the game. Jones scored 15 points and had five rebounds at halftime, outscoring Dolores 15-12 in the first half. The Bears didn’t catch up to Jones’ point total until there were 2 minutes, 1 second left in the third quarter, and Mikeal Ford hit two free throws to give Dolores 21 points.

“I wanted to come out on fire and do my best to give the team a little spark,” said Jones, son of Greg Jones and Latisha Taylor.

The Bobcats opened the second half on an 11-0 run to take a 44-12 lead and largely handed the reigns to their bench after that.

IHS only goes nine deep, so one of the Bobcats’ starters rotated in with the second unit in the second half.

The results were mixed.

“Sometimes we see some good things out of them, but we’ve got to be able to run the plays properly,” Valdez said. “Maybe I need to do a better job calling them when I should, but we knew what we were running out of huddles and we weren’t getting into them. That upset me a little bit.”

Valdez also wanted the team to increase the crispness of its passing across the board and knock down more 3-pointers. He estimated the shooting percentage on shots beyond the arc in the teens or 20s.

“The goal every week is to take care of the mistakes from the last game,” Valdez said. “This game it was our shooting and our turnovers.”

The Bobcats will have some time to fix those issues. They next play Durango High School at 7 p.m. on Jan. 8 at Whalen Gymnasium on the campus of Fort Lewis College.

“It’s a great competition, They’re a great team, very talented,” Valdez said. “They’re a different team from last year.”

kgrabowski@durangoherald.com



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