Elida girls move on to 1A semifinals

BERNALILLO — While the final score may not reflect it, the Elida girls basketball team faced a bit of a challenge in the No. 1 Tigers’ 56-33 1A quarterfinal win over No. 8 Cimarron Wednesday morning at Bernalillo High School.

Early foul troubles sent key Tigers to the bench. Nonetheless, Elida still carried a 17-7 lead over Cimarron (14-14) after the first quarter and pushed it to 15 at the half.

Lacy Ferguson scored 16 points and Kasyn Creighton 13 for the Tigers (23-7), who advanced to a 1:15 p.m. Thursday semifinal against No. 4 Des Moines, also at Bernalillo High.

“Quarterfinal games are always tough, because its the first game in Albuquerque and sometimes that leads to a little bit of nerves,” Elida coach Jaden Isler explained. “I was glad to see us respond so well. We got into a bit of foul trouble, but then we got everybody back to start the third quarter and took off from there. Just our ability to adjust (really impressed me). Our main ballhandler had three fouls right after the second quarter started, and to put in different guard combinations and not see a drop-off was impressive. We needed a bit of early tournament adversity.”

The Tigers put things on ice with a 17-3 third.

The Tigers will face a familiar foe in the semifinals. Elida opened the season with Des Moines (21-8), beating the Demons 61-40 on Nov. 21. Despite that, Isler knows that Des Moines has gotten better in the succeeding months, after watching them defeat Coronado on Wednesday morning.

“They’re a great team,” Isler said. “We played them in our first game, but they’re much better now, and we are too. They’ve got good guard play, and a good post player. Should be a tough game.”