BAYFIELD – The Bayfield and Montezuma-Cortez girls basketball teams have been neck-and-neck in the Class 3A Intermountain League standings all season, and when the No. 4 Wolverines hosted the No. 5 Panthers in the first round of the IML tournament Tuesday, the contest matched the competitiveness of the league season.
The two sides battled back and forth and traded runs from start to finish, and the game that seemingly no one in the stands Tuesday night at BHS wanted to see end finished in thrilling fashion, as the Wolverines prevailed 47-44.
“From both our perspectives, after visiting with (BHS head coach) Josh (Kitchen), both our teams are young, and knowing how we finished in the league, the fun games are playing against Bayfield and having these matchups,” Panthers head coach John McHenry said. “There were a lot of momentum swings. It kind of came down to keep putting the ball up and something will happen.”
And it did, but in Bayfield’s favor.
Down 44-41 with a little more than a minute to go, Bayfield’s Tymbree Florian banked in a 3-pointer from the left wing to tie the game.
“I knew I missed that shot. I started following it and was like, ‘That’s not going in,’” Florian said of the shot. “But, hey, I’ll take it.”
After getting a stop on the defensive end, Bayfield scored the go-ahead basket when junior Jordan Lanning got the ball on the right block and scored in the post to give BHS a 46-44 lead with about 20 seconds to go.
Cortez quickly got the ball across halfcourt and called timeout to draw up a final play.
The play worked and got an open shot for sophomore Dimery Plewe on the left wing, but the 3-pointer was off line and Bayfield’s Kira Riley snagged the rebound that secured the victory for BHS.
“I thought Tymbree and Jordan played great, but I thought a lot of the girls did a lot of the little things, whether it be defensive positioning or rebounding,” Kitchen said. “We really won this today as a team and people had impacts at different times, including our bench, who also stepped up when we really needed them.”
No one stepped up more than freshman post Macee Schultz, who ate up rebounds and found openings in the Panthers’ defense for easy baskets.
“That’s what she needed,” Florian said of Schultz. “Her confidence has been low these last couple of games, so this is what she needed to boost her confidence and show people what she can do and get out of her shell.
“Now, I think there’s more to expect out of her in these next few games because she knows what she can do now.”
After the Wolverines (7-13) scored on their first possession of the game, the Panthers (4-16) took control and led most of the first quarter.
Late in the first, Florian grabbed a rebound and sliced and diced her way through Cortez’s defense before she dumped off a pass in the paint to Schultz, who converted to give Bayfield a 10-9 lead, the Wolverines’ first lead since it was 2-0. But the Panthers responded with the next five points and held a 14-10 advantage at the end of the first quarter. The Panthers picked up their seventh team foul with about one minute remaining in the first quarter, and their 10th team foul with 6 minutes, 32 seconds to go before halftime, which put the Wolverines in the double bonus for the rest of the half.
Bayfield went 7-for-10 from the charity stripe in the second quarter and took a 27-21 lead into halftime.
Bayfield got its lead to 31-23 early in the third quarter, but the Panthers chipped away at the deficit and tied the game at 34 with a 3-pointer from Ayanna Silas in the closing seconds of the quarter. “They were zoning us pretty good,” McHenry said. “We knew if we could shift them to one side and reverse it to the other side of the court we could get some good looks because how they were rotating to our strong side.”
The Panthers continued their run into the fourth and held a 38-34 lead before the Wolverines rallied for the thrilling finish. Lanning led Bayfield with 11 points, Schultz finished with 10, and Florian and Riley added eight points each.
Plewe and Silas led the Panthers with eight points each, and Kailey Case and Presley Frost added seven points apiece.
The loss eliminated Cortez from the tournament, while the Wolverines will get ready to face No. 1 Centauri (18-1) in the tournament’s semifinals Thursday at Centauri High School.
kschneider@durangoherald.com
