EPAC Tournament tips off Wednesday

TEXICO — The recent past indicates the Texico Wolverines would be a favorite to win the Eastern Plains Athletic Conference boys tournament Saturday, with titles in six of the last eight seasons.

So does the present. The Wolverines, now 11-0 after winning their own tournament last week, go in as the top seed for the tournament entering its 61st year of featuring small-school basketball battles.

The Texico girls enter as the No. 1 seed in the girls tournament, which runs Wednesday and Thursday at Texico High School before heading to Eastern New Mexico University's Greyhound Arena for Friday and Saturday games.

The top two seeds in each tournament — Texico and Fort Sumner in boys, and Texico and Elida in girls — get a first-round bye while seeds 3-10 get things kicked off.

The Wolverines, 63-47 winners over Farwell in Saturday's Citizens Bank Tournament title game, await the winner of Wednesday's 3 p.m. contest between eighth-seed Grady and No. 9 Elida. The Foxes will play the winner of the 7-10 game at 7:30 p.m. between Floyd and San Jon. In other boys action, third-seeded Logan faces Tatum and Melrose battles Dora in the 4-5 game.

The Texico girls (9-3), who topped Robertson 31-23 on Saturday, will face the winner of the 4:30 p.m. contest between No. 8 Tatum and No. 9 Floyd. Elida, meanwhile, gets either seventh-seed Grady or the Portales junior varsity, which receives the No. 10 seed automatically as the only non-varsity team in the bracket.

Other girls action on Wednesday includes third-seeded Logan and No. 6 Dora kicking off action at 3 p.m. Melrose, the fourth seed, will face Fort Sumner in a 6 p.m. contest.

Greyhound Arena will host the final seven games of each tournament, beginning with the ninth-place games 9 a.m. Friday and ending with the 8 p.m. Saturday championship.

11 AND COUNTING

Texico's boy basketball team is the area's last still undefeated. With Saturday night's victory over Farwell, the Wolverines improved to 11-0 on the season.

Though Saturday's game was competitive most of the way, Texico has routed most of its opponents thus far. The Wolves may well find things a bit tougher in the EPAC Tournament, and that's fine with them.

Tournament play puts teams in situations different than they're used to facing during the regular season. And it's those types of situations the teams will have to endure in late February and early March, when they're looking to make deep state tournament runs, hopefully bring home a championship. So, preparation for teams' ultimate goal is a big plus the EPAC tournament offers.

"I think anytime you win a tournament it gives those kids a chance to play three days in a row without practice," Texico head coach Ty Thatcher said. "It gets them prepared for that state tournament, gives kids the energy to dig down, to come up with what you need to compete in that. ... To be able to perform on Day Three of the tournament, it's always good practice to do it early in the year."

And the Wolverines will take all the preparation they can get after being denied a state title last March, falling in the 3A semifinals.

EPAC play also gives teams to play under somewhat brighter lights than normal. Though the local high school gyms may be nice venues, it's something a little more special to play at Eastern New Mexico University's Greyhound Arena.

"Everybody's looking forward to playing at Eastern," Thatcher said. "The big gym and big stage is always fun."

Texico hopes the fun continues. As that undefeated team, one with a rep for top-notch basketball, the path to an EPAC title could be difficult.

"We always have a big target on our back every year," Thatcher said, "so the kids have to be resilient and handle all those teams that want to turn their season around by beating you. So it makes it interesting."