The Ignacio High School girls basketball team is the last one standing in La Plata County. The Bobcats are one of eight teams remaining in the Colorado High School Activities Association's 2A Girls Basketball State Tournament for the third time in school history. IHS' road to the title was laid out Sunday as CHSAA announced the remaining matchups beginning Thursday at Loveland's Budweiser Events Center.
Not only will Ignacio have to make the farthest trip of the eight teams, the eighth-seeded Bobcats (16-6) will open play at 8:45 a.m. against the defending 2A champions, and this year's top seed, Yuma (20-3). If IHS can pull off the upset, it will face the winner between No. 4 Wray (17-6) and No. 5 Simla (19-4) at 8:45 a.m. Friday.
"It'll be Cinderella against the defending champs and it didn't surprise me one bit," Ignacio head coach Shane Seibel said of his opening-round matchup. "When I was an assistant coach for some of those really good boys teams we had at Ignacio, we had a few of those 8:45 a.m. games. We've had some early practices this season at 6:30 a.m. with that in mind. We're going to go up there, have some fun and play our kind of hard-nosed, scrappy basketball."
The Bobcats are riding a five-game winning streak heading into the state tournament. They stormed through the 2A District 3 Tournament with double-digit wins in all three games, including a 16-point win against Rangely in Saturday's title game at Western State Colorado University in Gunnison.
Yuma has won six in a row coming into the tournament. Its last loss was a 47-24 setback to the tournament's sixth-seed Haxtun. Yuma also lost to Wray twice this year, so the Indians aren't invincible.
"Yuma has a great program," Seibel said. "They've been one of the state's best teams over the last four seasons. They lost some great players from last year's team, but the coach and the program are so good, they just keep winning. We don't know much about them and they don't know much about us, so we'll give it our best shot and try to shock everyone."
Undefeated Paonia (22-0) received the second seed and will face No. 7 Swink (20-2). The winner of that matchup will square off with the winner between No. 3 Del Norte (21-2) and No. 6 Haxtun (19-4).
jfries@durangoherald.com
