Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Starting the game with a 21-0 lead, the Tucumcari girls basketball team breezed to a 50-20 victory at Dexter in both teams’ district opener Friday.
The Lady Rattlers, using their sprawling full-court press to force a flurry of turnovers by the Lady Demons, led 21-5 after the first quarter and 41-7 at intermission.
The scoring pace went down after that because of a running mercy clock during much of the second half.
Caylee Benavidez led the Lady Rattlers with 20 points and six assists. July Lafferty added 17 points and six steals. Kyla Lopez had seven points and six steals, and Haisley Huffman made eight steals.
“We controlled the game early and pulled back the pressure early in the first half,” coach Patrick Benavidez said. “We did a good job working through our offense and being patient. We had a total of 17 assists as a team, which just shows the unselfishness of our team.”
Tucumcari, winners of four in a row, improved to 16-3 overall. The Lady Rattlers were ranked sixth in Class 3A in the latest MaxPreps.com rankings.
Dexter fell to 3-18 overall.
Tucumcari’s next district clash is at home against New Mexico Military Institute (1-6) on Friday night.