St. Michael’s falls in battle for Class 3A crown

Hope Christian took a page out of the Horsemen’s playbook, foregoing its usually up-tempo style for something more deliberate and methodical to earn a 42-29 win over the defending champs Saturday at the Pit in the Class 3A final.

“We weren’t planning on it,” said Huskies coach Jim Murphy, whose squad scored 93, 80 and 67 points in the previous rounds. “We said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to score 80 points against St. Mike’s?’ And, of course, we get a six-point lead and hold on for dear life.

St. Michael’s Kameron Romero, center, sits on the bench in the last few minutes of the state 3A basketball championship game at the Pit in Albuquerque on Saturday. (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal)

“We decided to do that to keep the lead and maybe get them out of their zone (defense), which has been very effective against us.”

Austin Drake paced the Huskies (20-11) with 14 points and Zac Garcia had 11, during a contest in which Hope led 12-6 after the first period, and then opted to spread the floor for the first 3:09 of ensuing period.

Asked if the Hope strategy caught him by surprise, Horsemen coach Ron Geyer answered with a resounding ‘no.’

“They’ve done that last two games,” Geyer said. “Against Lovington, it was a three- to six-point game at halftime and Hope and spread it in the third and fourth quarters and won it by 30 or 40. Against Shiprock yesterday, they went to spread and won by 30 or 40 as well – so it’s one of those things they have in their arsenal. They do it very well.”

“The best way to beat the spread is to be ahead – or have a shot clock,” Geyer continued. “But we had opportunities. We just missed too many shots.”

The Horsemen, after going 4-for-9 from the field in the opening half, going just 9-for-25 from the floor to find themselves trailing by as many as 13 points in the third quarter. Despite their shooting woes, St. Mike’s was able to make a final push, closing to 37-29 with 1:29 left in regulation.

The Huskies, however, maintained their lead by going 3-for-8 from the foul line to seal Murphy’s 11th state championship. And, sure, Murphy would have felt better had a few more of those free throws gone in, but he’s not complaining.

“Any shot is painful, whether they go in or not,” Murphy said. “And there’s so much pressure on these young guys – we try to tell them it’s just a normal game, but with all the crowd and the state championship on the line, these kids are nervous. Today, we were fortunate to make enough to get by.”

As for Tommy Riley, who said after the team’s semifinal win over Shiprock that there hasn’t been a day without him thinking about the final 5.7 seconds of last season’s championship loss to the Horsemen, he said he can finally move on.

“That was our motivation all season in practice,” he said. “We wanted to be in the state championship game again and show everyone that we wanted to win and we could win – and that’s what we did today.”

No St. Mike’s player finished in double-figures. Kameron Romero and Daniel Ortega paced St. Mike’s with six points apiece.