Ignacio girls yield in fourth, fall 44-31
Tasked with hounding Pagosa Springs seniors Alexis Campbell and Kaila Limebrook, Justina Jessepe’s evening Saturday, Jan. 17, probably wasn’t going to end without a bump or bruise.
She’d have been fortunate if that was all she had to show for such battles in the paint.
Active from the moment head coach Travis Nanaeto inserted her into Ignacio’s 3A/4A Intermountain League opener, and lucky not to have cracked her forehead against a bleacher step late in the fourth quarter after falling out of bounds trying to regain possession, the freshman forward finally made an exhausted exit mere moments later when, while shadowing PSHS’ Ximena Garcia as the junior guard tried driving into the lane, she abruptly crashed down onto the court after a teammate also in hot pursuit accidentally collided with her from behind.
Jessepe required some help to hop/hobble back to the Lady Bobcats’ bench, but her earlier impact was probably the reason Garcia’s two made free throws – resulting from contact with Jessepe – increased the visiting Lady Pirates’ lead to just ten points, 41-31, with 1:58 remaining in regulation.
“She got hurt in Center, so this was her first game back since December,” Nanaeto said. “She just came here – out of Kansas – in the … beginning of the season, and she’s been turning out pretty good. You can still see that ‘freshman’ in her game, but if we can work through that she’ll be alright.”
“I don’t even know what happened,” Jessepe said afterwards, her left knee well-wrapped. “Someone was behind me (overhearing the question, senior forward Juliann Avila interjected briefly and accepted responsibility) and I went down, landed on my knee really hard. But I’ll be ready for Tuesday.”
“We’ve improved a lot on our finishing and our shooting,” she continued, already looking ahead to Ignacio’s slated 1/20 visit from 2A Dolores, “so I think with that we’ll probably score more than we did this time.”
Or even the game previous, a 50-31 home loss on the 15th to 2A Southern Peaks power Sargent – preceding what ended up being a 44-31 loss inside IHS Gymnasium to 4A Pagosa Springs.
“We have stints where we do really well – yesterday’s game against Monte Vista we had a great first half, then we came out in the third quarter and had five turnovers to start,” said PSHS head coach Sarah Osborn. “Today I think it was different; we were super-slow in the first quarter, then in the third all the way through the fourth we picked it up.”
The Lady Pirates (5-6 overall, 2-0 IML) took a 4-0 lead early, but a three-pointer by junior Aubree Lucero not only got the Lady ’Cats (1-9, 0-1) on the scoreboard but set in motion a series of possessions all ending with Jessepe putting the ball in the hoop: two FTs giving IHS a 5-4 lead, an Alyssa Atencio-assisted two-point take regaining IHS a 7-5 lead, and a Maliyah Martinez-assisted layup putting the home side up 9-7.
“I felt confident; I knew they were going to get me good passes,” Jessepe said, a move-in from Lawrence, Kan., and younger sister of two who played at that basketball-crazed city’s Haskell Indian Nations University. “So I’m thankful for them; they’re really good guards.”
Martinez, a junior guard/forward, then closed out the opening eight minutes receiving a lob into the paint from senior point guard Atencio and converting the catch into an unexpected 11-7 advantage. But an even more unexpected three-pointer by Limebrook cut Ignacio’s lead back down to 13-12 with 6:18 left until halftime, and Garcia followed a Nanaeto timeout with PSHS’ second trey, giving the guests a 15-13 edge with 3:47 to go.
Taking a feed from Avila, Martinez would later re-tie the score at 17-all, but Limebrook immediately countered with a buzzer-beating jump-hook close to the baseline. Junior guard Adelyn Hittle then got the third quarter underway with a two-point drive, and PSHS’ lead soon reached 23-17 before Ignacio again began chipping away at it.
A Martinez three pulled the Lady ’Cats back to 25-22, and a nearly-vertical, close-range shot by sophomore forward Veronica Brown somehow fell through the net and kept IHS within three points, 27-24. The Lady Pirates, however, concluded the quarter with baskets by Hittle and senior reserve Charity Domingo and began the fourth quarter up 31-24.
Hittle’s three-pointer, assisted by Domingo, with 3:26 left in the game effectively offset a combined seven-point effort by Atencio and Avila and actually increased Pagosa Springs’ lead to 39-31.
“We’ve been pretty high this season with turnovers, while transitioning to new point guards Adi and Ximena. They’ve been doing a great job but … the offense doesn’t flow the whole game,” Osborn said. “What I’d like to see more is us being more consistent all four quarters.”
Hittle finished with a game-high 16 points, while Garcia and Limebrook each totaled nine. Domingo and senior Amberlynn Snarr each scored four points, while Campbell booked two while snaring no less than a dozen rebounds.
Martinez registered nine points for Ignacio and Jessepe totaled eight. Atencio chipped in five points and Avila four.
“It was a good game. We worked hard and we’re almost to the step where we can progress, but we need a little more,” Nanaeto said. “They’re working as a team and … we really saw it on defense. Plus movement off each other, making more shots, communication in the plays a bit more – I’m very proud of them.”
IHS will go to La Jara on Friday, Jan. 23, to continue league play at 3A Centauri. Results from the Lady Bobcats’ IML clash with 3A Bayfield the previous night, as well as against Dolores (5-6 overall, 2-1 3A/2A/1A San Juan Basin) were unavailable at press time.
AGAINST SARGENT
Atencio scored ten points, Martinez nine and Lucero six in the loss to SHS, but after starting the second quarter down 10-8, the Lady ’Cats would go into halftime trailing 27-8 and couldn’t rally all the way back – despite winning the fourth quarter 16-11. Lady Farmer junior Denver Holman piled up a game-breaking 27 points and classmate Kandace Pargin scored ten. The two combined go to 7-of-7 from the free-throw line, while junior Kimberly Pargin (seven points) netted Sargent’s only three-pointer.