Montezuma-Cortez Lady Panthers head coach John McHenry was happy with his team’s position heading into halftime on Thursday night.
The Panthers (5-4) jumped out to an early first quarter lead and hung around with the (CHSAANow) No. 4 ranked Centauri Falcons (9-1) to trail by five at the break, 29-24.
“We were in it,” McHenry said. “First quarter we came out and jumped out on them. We were up at one time and hadn’t really gotten into a rhythm of things.”
But the Panthers struggled to score in the second half and the Falcons took advantage of M-CHS turnovers and second-chance opportunities to run away with a 50-29 win.
“I don’t know if we just froze coming into halftime just down five,” McHenry said. “We froze and scored five points in the second half.”
Tayla Topaha got the Panthers out to a quick start with five first-quarter points and Kiselya Plewe directed the offense from the point guard position.
Plewe dribbled through the Centauri press and beat defenders to get into the lane for layups or dish-offs to teammates.
McHenry felt that Plewe’s success stemmed from Centauri’s 6-foot-2 sophomore Ember Canty’s hesitance to challenge Plewe’s shots.
“[Canty] wouldn’t come against her because she didn’t want to pick up fouls,” he explained. “So she was allowing Kiselya to kind of roll the dice and go ahead and shoot the layups and see if she misses or makes it.”
But Centauri threw a different look at Plewe in the second half, and by slowing her, the Panthers’ offense stalled.
“When they came out in the second half they went box-and-one on her,” McHenry said. “They denied her the ball. They weren’t going to give her any more layups.”
The Panthers mustered just four points in the third quarter and one in the fourth, and Centauri capitalized on M-CHS’ 16 second-half turnovers to outscore them 21-5 in the final two quarters.
“Too many turnovers,” McHenry said. “We talk about two, two and two. Two eyes, two feet, two hands. Every pass has to be that way and receiving every pass has to be that way. And we just started sitting back on our heels and throwing passes from the hip, and that’s what happens.”
Plewe and Topaha led the Panthers with seven points each, Kelcie Ralstin added five, Yanibah Bayles scored four and Gabby Wolf chipped in three.
The loss is the Panthers’ third consecutive, but they’ll look to right the ship in another tough Intermountain League game against Alamosa (2-6) on Saturday.