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La Cueva's win at Eldorado is a tale of two halves
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The narrative to the first half of Thursday night’s La Cueva-Eldorado boys basketball resembled the narrative of a hundred other halves between these two rivals through the years.
It was close, competitive, heated, filled with lead changes.
The second half felt like an unexpected plot twist, out of nowhere.
Almost nobody could have guessed that La Cueva’s tenuous three-point lead at halftime would balloon into a blowout, but that is precisely what happened as the Bears, on the road, pulled away for a 79-55 victory.
“We comin’, that’s all I got to say,” senior guard Tre Cowles said with a smile.
La Cueva (10-7) was playing its District 2-5A opener. The regularly scheduled league opener, earlier this week against Sandia, was pushed back to Saturday.
For Eldorado (8-10, 1-1), Thursday marked its second district game. And the rivals traded bursts and body blows over the first 16 minutes.
Cowles ultimately played one of the most pivotal roles Thursday night.
With Eldorado leading 27-23. Cowles scored 11 straight points in the final 2:07 before halftime, including a pair of 3-pointers, and the Bears surged in front 34-27. They never trailed again.
La Cueva, leading 41-37 early in the third quarter, went on a game-defining 18-0 run over 3½ minutes and drained the energy from the gym.
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“First half, we came out a little timid, and I don’t know why,” La Cueva coach Eric Orell said. “We had to ramp up the energy, and that was a lot of the talk.”
The Bears defense turned over Eldorado repeatedly during that run, often out on the perimeter where it was easier to get out in transition, and this frequently translates to easy baskets at the other end. Five players had a hand in that 18-0 run, and when it was over, it was 59-37 La Cueva with two minutes to go in the third quarter.
“They started making the extra pass, they started defending harder, and right now that’s our identity,” Orell said. “The kids changed it by their energy.”
The season is taking shape roughly the way Orell predicted.
The Bears, with quite a few new faces — and the loss of two star players, Cam Dyer (who graduated early to play football at Arizona State) and Daniel Lovato (who left La Cueva for ABC Prep) — started slow.
La Cueva lost its first four games, but the Bears are 10-3 since.
“It’s coming together nice, we like it,” Cowles said. “We thought it was gonna be a little struggle coming in with young guys, but all these young guys are coming together. They mesh well.”
Said Orell: “I told everyone who asked how we would be this year. My exact words were, we’re gonna struggle in November and December, and should be playing some pretty good basketball in January, February and March.”
La Cueva, Orell said, turned a corner when it won the Rio Rancho tournament between Christmas and New Year’s.
Sandia, which has been ranked second to Volcano Vista pretty much the entire season in the coaches’ poll, awaits Saturday.
“It’s time to really show if we are really playing good basketball,” Orell said.
Hunter Butler added 12 points, Drew Bramlett 11 for the Bears. Malachi Green’s 19 points were tops for the Eagles, but he only scored three points in the second half.
La Cueva claims victory over Eldorado: Photos
