Down 16 with 3 minutes, 14 seconds remaining, Ignacio High School girls basketball head coach Shane Seibel told his team, “Let’s finish this thing out right.”
He meant both the game and the season.
IHS (8-14) lost its Class 2A Region 3 semifinal 44-24 to Paonia on Friday at Whalen Gymnasium, ending the Bobcats’ season.
Paonia (18-5) forced 25 turnovers, 11 in the first quarter, largely because of its full-court pressure.
“Their press is very aggressive,” Seibel said. “We talked about having patience on that second cutter.”
IHS trailed 13-2 after one quarter, and Paonia ended the quarter on a 13-0 run after giving up the game’s opening field goal.
The Bobcats started to break the press better in the second quarter and got several of the Eagles’ better players into foul trouble.
Gabriela Garcia banked in a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to pull IHS within three points after trailing by as many as 10 points, seemingly giving them all of the momentum.
“It raised our spirits and made us motivated going into the second half,” said Garcia, daughter of Elco Garcia and Naomi Russell.
Garcia led IHS with 15 points and seven rebounds in the game.
The Eagles took all of the momentum back shortly after the third quarter started. They stretched their lead back out to 10 points and held that advantage through the rest of the game.
“That was their zone,” Seibel said. “We lost our patience a little bit once they went into the zone, and it threw us off balance a little bit.”
Paonia did it without pressing in the second half, though.
“I have to give Ignacio a lot of credit,” Paonia head coach Scott Rienks said. “We started early, and they broke it; they did a good job getting us out of it.”
Paonia avenged a loss to IHS in last season’s regional championship game to advance to Saturday’s title shot.
“We didn’t look at it (as a revenge game),” Rienks said. “We looked at it as they were the one standing in our way to get where we want to go.”
The Eagles will play Ridgway at 1 p.m. Saturday at Whalen Gym on the Fort Lewis College campus.
The loss ended Seibel’s first season as IHS head coach. The Bobcats started 2-10 before rallying to qualify for the regional tournament.
“It’s been full of memories and adversity we had to get through,” said IHS senior Cloe Seibel, daughter of Melanie Seibel and the head coach.
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
Class 2A Region 3
Girls High School Basketball
Class 2A Region 3 Tournament
March 7-8 at Fort Lewis College
Semifinals
Friday, March 7
Ridgway 35, Sargent 30
Paonia 44, Ignacio 24
Championship
Saturday, March 8
Paonia (19-5) vs. Ridgway (11-5), 1 p.m.
Durango Herald
