Capital High girls wrap up second place

Capital High girls wrap up second place inDistrict 2-5A basketball despite losing Friday night’s game at Los Alamos at the same time that Albuquerque Del Norte was losing at Espanola Jaguars now have time to correct things before hosting the district tournament semifinals Thursday night

By Arnie Leshin

Despite losing its leading scorer to a late-season knee injury, the Capital girls just remained on course to grab the runner-up spot in District 2-5A and get to play host to the district tournament semifinals Thursday night.

Even the Friday night 45-38 loss to last place Los Alamos at the Hilltoppers court couldn’t deny the Jaguars, because at first place Espanola Valley, down went Albuquerque Del Norte, 37-35.

This left the Knights at 4-4 in district and brought Capital second place at 5-3. It was a tough stretch run for first-year head Darren Casados, a Capital 1993 graduate, after 5-foot-8 junior Kyannah Cole wing suffered the season-ending injury in practice.

It was probably the Jags’ finest district finish in a decade. Casados has rejuvenated the program and it goes into the district tournament at 13-13 overall.

Now, besides drawing a bye into the semifinal game, Casados said that’s good because he said there’s now time to get back to basics, refocus, and let the team know that they still have a chance to do something.

“Yes, we’ve had a great year,” he said, “we’ve won 13 games, so now we can continue to do well.”

For Los Alamos, it ended its district season with this one win in eight starts, and put it at 5-20. But here it built a 12-2 lead, only to have Capital take a 22-21 halftime lead. Heaven Arciniega had her second-straight impressive contest by scoring the team-high with 12 points, and Ishara Sorensen added
11.

The Hilltoppers took a 33-29 lead into the fourth quarter and stayed in front until the final buzzer. Becca Green scored the game-high 18 points for Los Alamos.

Espanola finished first at 7-1 and sports a 13-11 overall record. Third place Del Norte owns an 11-13 overall mark, and Albuquerque Academy took the fifth spot at 2-3 and is 6-18 overall. Capital split the two games with the Sundevils and were the only team to defeat them in district.