Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
GRADY — The Grady Bronchos will do some unorthodox drills during their practices — sometimes including 12-on-12 play with the subvarsity levels chipping in — so the game action they face won’t be nearly as hard.
That work paid off Monday, as the Bronchos controlled things from start to finish in ousting Clovis Christian 79-51 in the first round of the District 6-1A tournament Monday night.
Chisum Rush had 33 points to lead three in double figures for Grady (8-16), who never trailed and were never seriously threatened in the second half.
Grady took a 12-3 lead early with a partial press that frustrated the Eagles (3-17) early on.
The Grady press was effective because when the Eagles did break it for a layup opportunity, they’d find Rush and Isaiah Mitchell defending the paint.
“We try to hassle teams with a lot of pressure up top with three guys,” Grady coach Jonathan Langan said. “We keep our big guys back to protect the rim. We’ll bluff help if we can, but we want rim protection to the last second possible.”
The Bronchos pushed the lead to 44-30 with back-to-back 3-pointers by Anthony Lopez in the third, and the lead swelled to 30 in the final minute.
Chad Becerra added 13 for the Bronchos, who traveled to Melrose for Tuesday’s second round, while Lopez added his 12 points on four 3-pointers.
Grady scored plenty off of their set plays that mostly went to Rush, but plenty of baskets came the Bronchos’ way off of offensive rebounds and what the average person would consider broken plays where a Broncho found a loose ball without a defender around.
“We work on our rebounding plenty,” Langan said. “We’ll get a lot of guys out there for the rebound, sometimes even in a 12-on-12 drill with the junior varsity involved. We try to get the ball and protect it because you know people are going to try to strip it.”
Tyler Lingnau scored 19, while Dawson Teune added 10 for the Eagles.
