THS girls romp against Bosque

You wouldn't know it from the final score, but Bosque hung in there against heavily favored Tucumcari during its girls basketball clash Saturday at Rattler Gymnasium.

The Lady Rattlers led by just 10 points at intermission but outscored the largely overmatched Bobcats 47-5 in the second half during a 74-22 victory at THS' basketball homecoming. It was Tucumcari's season-high for points scored.

Cambree Benavidez, a sophomore, led the Lady Rattlers (10-3) with 22 points.

Caylee Benavidez, her senior sister, had a triple-double with 17 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. Senior July Lafferty added 12 points, and junior Kyla Lopez totaled nine points and nine rebounds.

Bosque, which didn't field a junior varsity team, fell to 2-10.

In the first half, Tucumcari's offense was slow to find its rhythm, and Bosque's speedy guard, Ainsley Capps, almost single-handedly kept her team in the game, scoring 15 of its 17 points in the first half. She repeatedly burned the Lady Rattlers on the fastbreak.

"She was tough to guard," THS coach Patrick Benavidez said. "I'm glad we had the opportunity to see a good guard like that. To make Caylee and July step up, play defense and make them work was good because we're going to see other good guards on other teams. It will help us in the future."

"We didn't see that from them last year," Lafferty said. "They didn't have too much speed with ball handling, so it was different to see that come into play this game."

Tucumcari went into the locker room at halftime with a 27-17 lead, and the Lady Rattlers' coach made some adjustments.

"We got more disciplined on defense, started forcing some turnovers and running the floor a little bit more and getting some baskets and finishing," Coach Benavidez said. "It just got to where they couldn't handle it anymore."

He said he assigned more double-teams on defense to help keep Capps in control.

"We just needed to step up on defense and stop getting beat on the first step," Caylee said.

The result was the Lady Rattlers scoring 30 unanswered points in the third quarter, many of them on inside buckets, fastbreaks or offensive rebounds.

Bosque didn't score in the quarter until Capps made a driving bucket with 16 seconds left. By then, Tucumcari led 57-19, and the referees imposed a running mercy clock.

Tucumcari went on another 13-1 run in the fourth quarter to take the points total beyond the 70-point mark.

This week, the Lady Rattlers play at Cimarron on Tuesday and host Goddard on Friday in a rescheduled game.

THS then settles into district play with a game at Pecos on Jan. 23 before hosting Santa Rosa on Jan. 25.