Damon White Thunder didn’t immediately know his team’s rebounding figures after Tuesday night’s season-opener.
All that mattered was the one board Bayfield needed most … and got.
BHS senior guard Cooper Roderick still hadn’t found his stroke from the free-throw line as he went to the not-so-charitable stripe for a pair with barely 10 seconds remaining in regulation and Bayfield clinging to a whittled-down 60-58 lead. Neither went down.
Gambling, however, against picking up a disqualifying fifth personal foul, senior guard/forward Isaac Forsythe managed to outmaneuver the nearest Panther to him and not only pull in the rebound but quickly kick the ball back out to the near wing. Moments later the rock was back in Roderick’s hands and PVHS junior guard Josiah Gaede had no choice but to foul.
With only 0:05.8 remaining, Roderick drilled the interstate contest’s two most crucial FTs – ultimately clinching the Wolverines a tense 62-58 win inside BHS Gymnasium.
Bayfield improved to 1-0 overall with the win and Piedra Vista fell to 1-1 with the loss.
“We play in a tough league where everybody rebounds the heck out of the ball and we’ve got to be there,” White Thunder said. “That’s one of our points of emphasis for every game: Trying to win every single rebound war.”
Junior guard/forward Kingston Martinez said Forsythe doesn’t get enough recognition for his play and that one rebound won Bayfield the game.
Looking to build upon their own season-opening 71-64 home win over Bloomfield, Forrest Becker’s Panthers won a feeling-out first quarter, 10-9.
Martinez bookended Bayfield’s awakened second quarter with a 3-pointer to start and a perfect no-look dish past a defender in the paint to junior center/forward Vin McCullough for a layup with only two ticks left increasing the Wolverines’ regained lead to 23-18 at the break.
Bayfield’s advantage grew in the third quarter to 31-23 before Gaede canned a corner three with 4:10 left. With 1:02 left, the stage for a wild fourth frame was set; Piedra Vista senior Darian Penn drained a 3-pointer and after stealing the inbounds pass, zipped the ball to Watson for an easy two points, cutting BHS’ lead down to 34-33.
Held to just a late second-quarter triple in the first half, Roderick responded with a clutch trey keeping the Wolverines ahead 37-33 going into the fourth.
Sophomore Santiago Aranda pulled the Panthers back to 39-36 with an early 3-pointer, but PVHS steadily lost ground and trailed 49-42 with 3:33 remaining. Watson made one of two FTs – giving him two in eight tries – but Penn, unable to stop McCullough from booking a blue-collar and-one, fouled out with 3:22 left.
But behind junior Juaquin Jojola and Aranda, Piedra Vista again rallied. Becker used a timeout with 1:54 remaining and PVHS down 54-50. Martinez would knock down a three, but Watson immediately answered with one. Then after a takeaway seconds later stepped into another three from the same straight-on spot.
“Like coach said in the locker room, we tried really hard to lose that game at the end. Which I thought was kind of funny,” said McCullough. “But one of our sayings this year is ‘Play the whole game.’ We kind of stopped playing in the fourth quarter, but we … remembered that we want to play the whole game with everything we’ve got. And we did that.”
Still up 57-56, Bayfield gained vital breathing room with roughly 30 seconds left when McCullough got a shooter’s roll on a short-range baseline jumper assisted by Martinez. That gave BHS’ big nine points in the quarter and 16 for the game, matching Roderick (4-8 FT; 13 second-half points) for the game-high count.
In defeat, Watson scored 13 points after intermission and finished with 15. Jojola totaled 10 points. PVHS sank seven threes to BHS’ six but ended up just 7-of-18 from the foul line (BHS finished 8-of-13).
“Defense and rebounds is what we came out of the third quarter looking for, and that’s what we got,” said McCullough. “The whole team … all put in, and it was amazing. Feels good to win.”
Piedra Vista will next see action on next Thursday in Albuquerque Academy’s three-day Joe Armijo Classic. Bayfield will travel on Tuesday to 5A Durango for a 7 p.m. start. White Thunder knows it could be a major boost to the Wolverines’ early-season morale.
“You know, we’ve played with some of those guys, know how they play,” noted Martinez. “I think we can get them … but at Durango we’ll see how it goes. We just want to keep our momentum going.”
