BAYFIELD – The Piedra Vista girls basketball team carried two lethal poisons into its game against Bayfield High School on Tuesday and gave the Wolverines doses of both.
The Panthers beat the Wolverines 66-59 with a combination of low-post power and deadeye-shooting from behind the arc.
Kaleigh Graham scored 20 points with seven rebounds while Piedra Vista (11-7) made seven 3-pointers.
“It’s pretty tough (to defend both),” said Jaida Ross, daughter of Gene and Jamie Carlson. “We usually focus on the post because the teams we play usually aren’t great shooters out, but then they started making some threes, and we had to go out.”
Ross spent much of her time down low guarding Graham and rarely sat on the bench. She finished with 18 points and nine rebounds, both of which led BHS (5-6).
Andrea Zelinski joined her in double figures with 12 points and had seven rebounds and three steals.
The Wolverines trailed by nine points at the half but managed to cut the deficit to five with less than 3 minutes remaining on a shot by Ross.
They trimmed the Panthers’ lead to that margin several more times throughout the rest of the second half but never got the stop and score they needed to make it a one-possession game.
“The girls showed tremendous fight,” first-year BHS head coach Bri Simbeck said. “We still have some last-mintue things to fix so we can win games like this instead of just being close.”
BHS turned the ball over 21 times and allowed Piedra Vista to shoot 57 percent from the field.
The Wolverines, which had won two in a row, outrebounded the Panthers 26-19, which kept them close for much of the game.
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
