ST. MICHAEL’S GIRLS BASKETBALL

New St. Michael’s head girls basketball coach, Sonya Ruiz, had had a few years of coaching the Pecos High girls, now she welcomes the return of Lauryn Pecos to the Lady Horsemen, the 3-year starting point guard who was sidelined last year after ACL surgery

The team is 3-5 overall after Saturday’stight 57-54 loss to Socorro in the consolation round of the annual Ben Lujan White Bracket championship played at Pojoaque Valley,  but he 5-foot-5 Pecos, who handles the ball and dishes it off, as well as finding the shooting range, has been the team’s leading scorer and tossed in 19 points against the Warriors (4-3).

“It was first quarter woes for us again,” said Ruiz, “and for the third straight game we scored only three points in that span.”

Her team trailed early on at 15-4, but picked it up in the second quarter and trimmed the gap to 23-18 at halftime. But Socorro responded to stay in front 39-31 after three quarters.

“We kept at it,” Ruiz said, “We got it down to five in the fourth quarter, down to four, then down to three, but could never get any closer.”

Junior point guard Lily Rodriguez junior power forward tossed in nine points each for St. Michael’s, with the team losing a previous contest, 39-38, against Socorro, and then getting past crosstown rival Capital, 40-37, at home.

Tuesday the Lady Horsemen return home and will no doubt face its toughest test of the season when undefeated Bernalillo (9-0) visits and led by the state’s leading scorer, 5-5 senior point guard Juliana Aragon, who is averaging 35.4 points, 9.1 assists, 3.6 rebounds, 3.7 steals, and has tallied 316 points for a team that has scored 662 points (74.2 a game) and allowed 364 (30.4 per game).

The closest start for the Spartans came in Saturday’s 60-52 victory versus visiting Taos, and it got past Pojoaque Valley in the first of two games against the Elkettes.

At the annual Eddie Pena Classic played at Belen, the Capital girls lost twice, to Grants, 59-41, and to Rio Rancho High, 57-18, to fall to 3-7 overall. In game one, Grants came up with 24 fourth quarter points to pad a 35-28 advantage after the Jaguars bailed out of a 15-point halftime deficit.

Against the Rams, Capital fell behind 23-8 after one quarter, were held to only one point in the second quarter, and were down 39-9 at the intermission. Annalise Leos turned in 15 points against Grants and Abriana Mares tallied a dozen versus Rio Rancho.