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Home / Sports News / Pojoaque Valley goes 3-for-3 as the girl’s basketball round robin is played over three days in the annual Lady Horsemen Christmas at Perez- Shelley gymnasium

Pojoaque Valley goes 3-for-3 as the girl’s basketball round robin is played over three days in the annual Lady Horsemen Christmas at Perez- Shelley gymnasium

Host St. Michael’s wins 2-of-3, with the lone loss coming against Espanola Valley in Friday’s tournament closer

By Arnie Leshin
Arnie Leshin

And the winner is Pojoaque Valley by a knockout.

Unofficial as it is, it was only the Elkettes who won all three games when the round robin format was employed at the annual Lady Horsemen Christmas tournament played at St. Michael’s.

In Friday’s third and final day at Perez-Shelley gymnasium, Pojoaque rolled over Albuquerque Cottonwood Classical Prep, 52-13, to give it 186 points scored and 92 yielded. It had maybe one challenge, and that was against Espanola Valley on Thursday when the Elkettes won with a late run.

So Pojoaque leaves the tournament with a 12-1 record, Cottonwood drops to 1-7, Espanola is all even at 6-6, and then there’s host St. Michael’s, which unofficially placed third after a 47-42 overtime setback to the Sun Devils in Friday’s final game, and Espanola became the runners-up as both won two of three.

For the Lady Horsemen (6-7), it was again a case of turnovers and poor foul shooting. That was what cost them in the 4-minute overtime. As time ticked down, they missed enough free throws and turned in too many turnovers while the Sundevils scored all but two of their OT points from the charity stripe,

In all, Espanola made good on seven of 16 freebies and St. Michael’s was 15-for-27.

But the Lady Horsemen had a chance to win it in regulation. They had the ball, moved it around, and at 8.3 on the clock, instead of getting off a shot, they were called for a 5-second violation. It was 38-38 at the end of regulation.

Sophomore Carissa Padilla led St. Michael’s with 14 points, senior Sydney Helford added 10, and senior Jodi Gromley made the all-tournament team.

The leading scorer was Cobre’s 5-foot-10 freshman Skkyla Guck. She tallied 20 points in the 64-36 victory over Albuquerque Sandia Prep, with a total of 67 for the tournament.

. . . Elsewhere, Santa Fe High’s girls turned in a 59-43 win over Alamogordo in the consolation round of the Los Lunas tournament, and advanced to the consolation semifinals against Artesia.

It was also the second triumph this season for the Demonettes over Alamogordo (4-8) when it won 47-31 back on Dec. 16. This time, Alamogordo came away with a 18-12 lead after the first quarter, and it stayed close until Santa Fe High (5-7) went on a 18-4 run in the third quarter and led 47-30 heading into the final quarter.

The Demonettes also had a 17-8 run that put them up by three at halftime. Kaya Suina led the way with 20 points and Taylor Salazar scored 16.

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