Alamogordo tops Clovis boys to clinch third seed

ALAMOGORDO — Round 2 between the Clovis Wildcats and Alamogordo Tigers, like Round 1, went to the Tigers.

Round 3 will end somebody’s season in three days.

The Tigers made sure they would host their final matchup with Clovis, never trailing in a 59-45 District 4-6A win on Friday night.

Kamiron Bickham had 22 points to lead three players in double figures for the Tigers (8-17, 2-4), who clinched the third seed in next week’s four-team, stepladder district tournament.

It will technically begin Monday night in Artesia, with Carlsbad and Hobbs playing a tiebreaker game for the district’s top seed. The Cavemen won 63-46 Friday at Hobbs to force the neutral-site game.

link Alamogordo Daily News photo: Peter Dindinger

Clovis sophomores Jakeem Wynn, left, and Taitt Kutcha defend Alamogordo’s Willie McClinton during Friday night’s District 4-6A boys game at the Tiger Pit in Alamogordo. The Tigers defeated the Wildcats 59-45 in the regular-season finale for both teams.

Fourth-seeded Clovis will travel to Alamogordo again pm Tuesday. The winner travels to face the second seed — Monday’s loser — on Thursday, with the Monday winner hosting the district tourney final on Saturday.

All games tip off at 7 p.m.

The Wildcats (3-21, 0-4), losers of seven straight, needed to win by three or more points to wrest the third seed, but they could never fight back from early deficits of 9-2 and 17-4.

“We fought our way back into the game, but (it’s) the same old story,” Clovis coach Scott Robinson said. “We had some easy opportunities we didn’t convert on. We couldn’t get into a rhythm.”

Robinson said a big dunk by sophomore Dee Smith got the Tiger crowd going, but became somewhat of a reality check moment for the Wildcats. They eventually cut it to five at one point, and trailed 24-17 at the half.

“Down seven at halftime, we really felt we had given ourselves a chance,” Robinson said. “A couple of possessions where we forced them into long shots, we didn’t rebound and they got some easy opportunities to put it back into double figures.”

Trailing 41-25 after three, Clovis cut the lead to single digits with about three minutes to play, but Bishop Woodruff hit his only basket of the game, a nail-in-the-coffin 3-pointer, on the ensuing possession.

Senior Eli Rodriguez scored 22 points to match Bickham for game high, but no other Wildcats player had more than six.

“He did some good things, attacked the basket and finished well in the paint,” Robinson said of Rodriguez. “We couldn’t get anybody giving us another steady option.”