TULAROSA — There was a little bit of a scare for the Tularosa High School girls’ basketball team Thursday night at the Michael Dorame Gymnasium.
After a shaky first half, the No. 6 Tularosa Wildcats (10-4) defeated the Estancia Bears (2-12) 61-39.
Estancia might have just two wins, but they didn’t play like a team who was down and out in the first half. Turnovers were the downside for the Wildcats early on, but they came out a different team in the second half.
“That’s what we just got done talking about is playing four full quarters,” Tularosa head coach Pat Garcia said. “This is not something new to us. We’ve changed some things, some culture and stuff like that, and it’s been a slow methodical change.
“If we can start like we finish we could be a pretty good team. We got a (six) ranking in the state, and I tell the girls I know what the rest of the state has. We could be one of those top two teams if we start to put this stuff together.”
At one point the game was tied 7-7 in the first quarter. Tularosa ended up taking a 12-9 lead.
The Wildcats extended their lead to five points at the break. Once again, Tularosa tried to force a lot of their opportunities on offense, which led to some costly turnovers that allowed Estancia to hang around.
In the second half, Tularosa was a much more different team.
Rotating five players in and out each quarter, the second wave of players for Tularosa stepped it up a notch. They ended up outscoring Estancia, 14-10, in the third frame to have a 38-29 lead.
The game was finally put away in the fourth quarter.
Some highlights from the Estancia at Tularosa game. Tularosa won, 61-39, Thursday night. Peter Dindinger/Daily News
Tularosa sophomore Ciara Salazar tallied all her eight points in the final frame, while sophomore Shacie Marr had eight of her 11 total points in the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats dominated the final frame, 23-10, to walk away with the 22-point victory.
Sophomore Jordan Gaston and senior Sierra Montoya each tallied nine points for the Wildcats. Junior Ember Cervantes chipped in with seven points, all tallied in the second half.
Freshman Brynn Martinez and senior Tayler Noblitt chipped in with five points each.
Tularosa shot 16-for-29 (55 percent) from the free throw line. Salazar went four-of-seven from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter.
One big storyline was how Tularosa would rebound after losing to a quality Lordsburg team at home in their own tourney last weekend. The girls responded by finishing the game.
“We had a good team conversation in that locker room. We kind of aired some things out and we came out of it a better group,” Garcia said. “A team that communicates is better off with that.
“We would love to get that fast start. We kind of didn’t come out and press right away. We dropped back into our zone and then hoped to just run up and down the court. We’ll get this figured out because these girls are too good not to.”
Estancia junior Mariah Aday tallied 12 points, while junior Lainey Fastnacht had eight points. Senior Callie Larson finished with six points.
The game was very physical from the start. Both teams were in the double bonus by the second quarter. Estancia had 24 team fouls in comparison to Tularosa’s 23 fouls.
Estancia shot nine-for-22 from the charity stripe.
“Turnovers,” Garcia replied when asked about what’s the one factor that’s keeping his team from playing like a top two program. “I like to play fast. We’re not going to change anything because of talent.
“I want to play fast, but we don’t want to play reckless. We get a lot of steals. We get a lot of turnovers, but we can’t trade that. If we’re gonna make a lot of turnovers and we get a lot of steals they kind of balance each other out. We’d love to obviously have more steals than turnovers. If we can put a handle on that we’re gonna be a much better team. We’re gonna put up 80 points easy against just about everybody.”
UP NEXT: Tularosa begins District 4-3A play at 6:30 p.m. Thursday hosting Capitan.