Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
ALBUQUERQUE — A buzzer-beating 3-pointer by senior Monay Phillips gave Clovis High’s girls a five-point lead and some momentum heading into halftime of Tuesday’s District 2-6A matchup against Sandia.
Then Matadors senior Cara Liggins took over.
Liggins, who scored all 12 Sandia points in the first quarter, went off for 16 during a 25-9 domination of the period, and the Matadors pulled away to a 67-50 victory over the Lady Wildcats.
“Things were looking pretty good,” Lady Cats coach Jeff Reed. “Then we came out flat on defense in the third period, and they got some easy baskets. They just took over the game.”
Liggins finished with 35 points for Sandia (18-5, 6-3 district). She and junior center Marisol Silva (15) accounted for nearly three-quarters of the team’s scoring.
“She can pretty much do it all,” Reed said of Liggins, who also had four of Sandia’s six 3-point baskets. “We knew who she was (coming in), too.”
Junior guard Teya Morris led the Lady Cats (9-16, 2-7) with 13 points.
Clovis is locked into the No. 5 seed in the in the six-team district tournament, and will play at Santa Fe High on Tuesday.
The Matadors had only two more field goals than CHS, but shot 21-of-32 from the free throw line to 10-of-16 for the Lady Cats.
Clovis will finish the regular season on Saturday with a 6:30 p.m. tipoff at The Rock against district-leading La Cueva (16-7, 8-1), which suffered its first district loss on Tuesday at home against Eldorado 49-44.
