Tatum caps season with 2A girls state championship

A double-overtime loss last season proved to be the fuel Tatum needed to come back this season and win it all.

“We didn’t like that last year, we didn’t like that loss in double overtime in the semis,” Coyotes coach Greg Slover said. “But we talk about that all the time. Your negatives, turn them into positives and they did. We opened the season up talking about that right there.”

The positive was a hard-fought 57-53 win for top-seeded Tatum (27-5) over No. 3 Pecos (26-7) for the Class 2A girls high school state championship.

“Every state title, you don’t have words to speak of,” Slover said. “We were just talking about that coming up the ramp. We’ve had a few of them and they don’t ever get old. It never gets old because you have a new bunch every time.”

The Coyotes last won in 2019 and have five state titles overall.

“It’s a surreal feeling,” said Tatum wing Avery Henard, who finished with a double-double on 15 points and 13 rebounds. “I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet. But we worked hard every day and it paid off. And I wouldn’t have any other team to win it with.”

Coyotes guard Louann Villasenor also had a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

“It’s unreal,” she said as she clutched the blue trophy. “It’s the greatest thing to ever happen to me in my high school career. And I’m so glad that I finished it with a W.”

The game was tight throughout, with Pecos holding its largest lead at 24-16 midway through the second quarter.

But Tatum got right back into it, sandwiching an 11-1 run around halftime to take a 27-25 lead.

After the Panthers tied it, the Coyotes had a 6-0 run midway through the third, but that proved to be pivotal as Pecos was playing catch-up — unsuccessfully — for the remainder of the game.

“I do think we wore them down a little bit and got some steals there in that third quarter because we talked about the third quarter every game, that that is our quarter,” Slover said.

Tatum took its biggest lead at 45-37 early in the fourth quarter but then Natalia Stout got hot for Pecos, hitting three 3s, the third of which cut the lead to 56-53 with 30 seconds left.

“Our team was kind of down and I figured I had to take it into my own hands, start getting them going again and hope for the best,” said Stout, who finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds.

She caused a little anxiety for Slover.

“I’m sweating like you can’t believe right now,” he said, to the chuckles from his team. “Yeah, it was it got a little nerve-wracking when they start rattling the 3s home. But I knew we would come back at them, too.”

The Coyotes had set out to limit Stout, and did an admirable job until the final quarter.

“It was a team effort on that, too,” he said. “Our defense, we like to help each other out on that and when they have a good player, we really help out on it. We try to keep the penetrations down from the dribble.”

And that was exactly what the Panthers were trying to create.

“We wanted to attack the basket,” said Pecos coach Lawrence Ragland. “And we were but we just weren’t getting to the free throw line. We were but not as many times as we needed to.”

The offensive glass proved to be a further key to the game as Tatum had a 24-13 advantage.

“Those are big,” Slover said. “We have some people who go to the offensive boards. They’re not gigantic, but they will keep coming at you.”