First win for new head coach Sonya Ruiz

After losing her opener at Los Alamos, St. Michael’s first-year head girls basketball coach Sonya Ruiz didn’t take long to claim her initial win with Tuesday night‘s dominating 56-29 non-district success over visiting Academy of Technology and The Classics.

Next stop for the former head girls coach at Pecos is a visit Thursday for a non-district game at Taos.

As for ATC under head coach Ron Drake, it was his team’s initial loss in three starts and it will open play Thursday in the West Las Vegas tournament when it matches up with Escalante in a 11:30 morning start.

Drake in fact also coached the Pecos girls to their first state championship before taking over the Phoenix program.

As for the Lady Horsemen, this was no contest after it turned an 11-10 lead into a 41-21 advantage behind a balanced attack led by senior Milena Keene’s dozen points, and 10 points each from Lauryn Pecos and Carmen Pacheco.

Pecos, the player, is the starting point guard who missed two years of basketball, soccer, softball after ACL surgery, and now Coach Ruiz has someone who can run her offense. It was in the second and third quarters that the Lady Horsemen turned it up for 30 points.

This occurred after the opening setback versus Los Alamos brought just eight points for St. Michael’s in a 37-26 defeat.

In Pojoaque Valley, the Santa Fe High girls visited for this non-district contest and carted off a 58-43 triumph in the opener for both teams.

Next, the Demonettes play host to Los Alamos Thursday in the first round of the Bobby Rodriguez Capital tournament in a scheduled 5:30 p.m. start for the annual tournament at Santa Fe High.

On this night, Laisha Diaz led three teammates in double figures with the game-high 19 points. Maci Cordova added 13 and Katelyn Padilla tossed in 10. Santa Fe High turned an early 11-9 lead it upped to 34-15, with the lead then increasing to 48-33 before head coach Nate Morris emptied his bench, and this helped Pojoaque turn in 20 points in that span.

Meanwhile, the Elkettes will also be in Santa Fe when they play at Capital Thursday in non-district play.

At Thoreau, the Santa Fe Indian School girls got away to a quick start and then led 42-33 after three quarters for their second-straight win. Despite this, the Hawks hung around, outscored the Braves, 13-9, down the stretch, but a pair of free throws in the final minutes by Indian School’s Jordan Torres.

secured the victory.

Torres tallied 16 of her final 20 points in the second half and Cameron Connors tossed in 13.