Clovis girls rout Monarchs

CLOVIS — The other night, LeBron James said that he and the Cleveland Cavaliers were in “Strugglesville.”

Saturday, though the Clovis girls basketball team had its own struggles — mostly offensively — the Lady Wildcats still managed to take the train to Win Town, which they hope will be just one stop along the way to Playoff Junction.

Yes, Clovis’ 45-22 victory over Manzano at Rock Staubus Gymnasium was about what the Lady ’Cats expected. And no, a game that was 21-4 at halftime did not qualify for instant-classic status. But, the Lady Wildcats did what they had to do, bagged their first District 2-6A win of the season. And they did so at the end of a difficult week that saw one of their best players, sophomore forward Madison Tolbert, go down with a season-ending knee injury.

A district win is a district win, whether it’s one for the archives or not.

“Ugly, ugly game,” Clovis head coach Jeff Reed said. “But we’ll take the win. We’ll take any district win we can get.”

“It gives us huge momentum,” Wildcats senior guard Sydni Hill said. “It’s just a big momentum boost going into the next district games that are going to be harder.”

Clovis improved to 10-8 overall, 1-1 in district competition, despite playing its first full game this season without Tolbert. The sophomore scoring and rebounding standout was injured in the second quarter of Tuesday’s 45-42 home loss to Eldorado, and Reed says it was a torn ACL with a partially-torn MCL. Tolbert is not just done for the season, she’s out of basketball commission for 6-7 months, with the hope that she’ll be able to start practicing again about a month, maybe a month and a half, before next season begins.

“That’s about as bad as it can be,” Reed said of the prognosis.

Reed, though, is also hopeful that one positive emerges. He’d like Tolbert’s injury to ignite her teammates.

“They’re sad for her,” Reed said, “but I haven’t seen any doom or gloom. I hope we’re rallying behind her and we’ll maybe use that for motivation. We want to win for Tolbert. I put that stuff on the board before games; hopefully, they’ll use that for a rallying deal.”

“Madison was a big part of our offense,” Hill said. “She scored a lot of points and she definitely gave us a big energy boost when we needed it. We’re just trying to score those points and win those games for her, because we know she wishes she could be out there with us.”

As one of the senior leaders, Hill expects to help fill the void.

“I think I need to step up and score more points,” said Hill, who scored five on Saturday in a game where Clovis was able to ease up in the second half. “When things get tough, people should look to me and Teya (Morris) to get those big shots when we need them.”

Saturday, there was little trouble for any Wildcat, especially Morris, getting opportunities against Manzano (4-12, 0-2). The Lady Monarchs recorded four points in the entire first quarter, with Mya Williams and Marisol Alvarado providing them. But Morris beat that on her own, scoring six in the quarter.

Clovis took a 10-4 lead into the second period and proceeded to outscore Manzano 11-0 in that quarter to build a comfortable 17-point halftime advantage. Morris finished the half with 12 points, and wound up with 14 for the game after the ’Cats intentionally let up a bit in the third and fourth quarters.

On the downside, Clovis shot 6-for-22 from the foul line, 1-for-9 in the third quarter, 0-for-8 until 26.5 seconds remained in that quarter.

And that was after the Lady Wildcats had spent 20 minutes on Saturday afternoon practicing free throws.

“6-of-22. We’ve got to do better,” Reed said.

Aside from the sides of a barn being safe against his team’s foul shots on Saturday, Reed thinks the overall offense needs improvement.

“It wasn’t just one person,” he said. “There are four or five girls that have got to put the ball in the hole for us.”

If their offense clicks, the Lady ’Cats might be in decent shape as they forge into the remainder of their district slate. They are, after all, getting stops on the other end, as indicated by the way they clamped down on Manzano’s first-half offense.

“To do what we did against them defensively was fantastic,” Reed said. “I was pleased with our defense. But offensively, we struggled.”

“Our defense is actually really good,” Hill said. “We get the (offensive) opportunities, we just have a hard time finishing. ... If we take care of our offense, I can see us being able to compete for a district championship.”