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Sunday, February 15, 2009
Hornets Edge Vikings
By James Yodice
Journal Staff Writer
Highland and Valley are proof that it's never too early to begin a political campaign.
With still two weeks to go before a committee hunkers down to rate Class 5A's boys basketball teams from No. 1 to No. 16 for next month's state tournament, the seventh-ranked Hornets and sixth-ranked Vikings on Saturday night hooked up at Highland for one of those tasty late-season, non-district chess matches.
Jordan Howard's free throw with 1.2 seconds remaining tipped this one in favor of Highland, which won 54-53, and the schools' respective coaches, old friends Joe Coleman of Valley and Danny Brown of Highland, quickly began to contemplate some of the repercussions.
"That game," Coleman said, "shouldn't hurt either team for seeding."
Certainly a compelling scenario is brewing, especially among a group of closely matched teams that includes Highland and Valley, but also Eldorado, Hobbs, Clovis, Gallup, La Cueva and Las Cruces.
Assuming Manzano cements the No. 1 seed, the order of the Nos. 2-9 teams becomes a jigsaw puzzle with lots of interchangeable pieces. And it is worth noting that the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds would likely find themselves in the same half of the bracket as Manzano.
Nobody wants that, so it is somewhat urgent that teams spruce up their résumé whenever and wherever possible to curry favor with the committee.
First, let's consider Valley (18-6), which has wins over top-ranked Manzano, No. 2 Gallup, plus No. 8 La Cueva and No. 9 Clovis.
The Vikings, locked in a battle with La Cueva for the District 2-5A title, couldn't have done much damage to their cause Saturday.
Valley trailed 31-18 late in the first half, but thanks in part to the contributions of pesky point guard Pat Holmes the Vikings were on Highland's heels throughout the second half and nearly stole this one.
"Pat Holmes is as good a point guard as there is," Brown said.
It was Valley junior guard Mike Maya, however, who tied the game on three separate occasions in the final 2 1/2 minutes, including two free throws to make it 53-all with 31.8 seconds to go.
Highland had the ball at the end.
Chad Adams missed badly on a 10-footer, with about three seconds left. So badly, in fact, that it was easily rebounded by Howard, who was fouled by Josh Garcia on the way back up.
After missing the first of two free throws, Coleman called timeout to try to get into Howard's young head.
"That timeout helped me, believe it or not," Howard said.
Why? Because Brown made sure of it.
"I told him a couple of jokes," Brown said. "Dirty jokes. But I knew he was gonna step up and make them. And it's fitting because he's a senior captain."
A desperation 40-foot heave by Maya at the buzzer wasn't close.
And now the case for the Hornets (19-5).
Highland has beaten Valley twice, but the Hornets can't finish better than third in their district (5-5A), and can only do that with wins next week over Rio Grande and Los Lunas. Manzano and Eldorado are guaranteed of higher seeds than Highland, and where to place the Hive — who have beaten District 3-5A leading Las Cruces, plus Eldorado and La Cueva — could be tricky.
"We put it in other people's hands, and there's not much we can do," Brown said. "If we win our next two, and finish well in the district tournament, we could be anywhere from 5 to 7. It's hard to say."
Said Coleman: "I believe our team is deserving of a high seed. Top eight, we're better than even that."
Adams led Highland with 23 points. Maya had 16 to pace the Vikings.
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