Buffs defend district

MELROSE — It was just a step along the way to Melrose’s ultimate goal. But it was a pretty cool step.

Last Saturday night, the Melrose boys basketball team won its second straight District 6-1A championship by beating Fort Sumner 64-36 at Melrose High School. What the Buffaloes really want is to win a third consecutive state 1A title, but they were happy to successfully defend the district crown first.

“I’m proud of the guys,” Melrose head coach Kevin Lackey said.

“It’s always a big deal,” Wildcats senior Tristan Sena said. “I think it’s good for the school to get people active in the community. There was great fan support tonight; the stands were full tonight. It hasn’t been like that in a while, I don’t think. So it was nice, it was fun to play in. We’ve still got bigger goals ahead of us. I mean, it’s great, but we’ve still got to keep on moving.”

“It’s big, it was really fun,” Melrose senior Dylan Valentine said. “A big crowd came out here, gave us lots of energy.”

Saturday’s game was a rematch of last year’s district championship. But the teams and the stakes and Melrose winning those stakes were the only similarities to last year, when the Buffaloes had to visit Fort Sumner and needed double overtime to out-fox the Foxes.

Saturday’s contest was never really all that close. Fort Sumner had moments where it seemed a comeback might not be out of the question, but those moments were few. Melrose was as overwhelming as its 25-1 post-game record indicated.

“They’re a good basketball team. They’re well-coached,” Fort Sumner head coach Brad Holland said after his own team fell to 15-12. “We’ve got to hit shots and we’ve got to defend better than that. And we’ve definitely got to rebound better.”

Melrose took an early 7-0 lead — thanks to a pair of Trace Jackson free throws, two-point field goals from Tate Sorgen and Valentine, and a Sorgen foul shot.

Fort Sumner finally scored with 3:13 left in the first quarter, when Parker Lewis hit two free throws. And by quarter’s end it was still a reasonable 11-6 deficit for the Foxes.

But Melrose opened the second quarter with a bang, putting together a 14-0 run that began with a fallaway three from Valentine and continued with a Valentine free throw, a running one-hander from Sena, a pair of left-corner threes from Jackson, and a Devon Bailey putback.

When the run was over, Melrose led 25-6 with roughly three minutes to play in the half.

A Creed West three with 2:20 left in the second quarter ended Fort Sumner’s scoring drought. By halftime, Melrose’s lead was 26-11.

The Foxes opened third-quarter play with a flurry, as Kane Burney and Jayden Cline hit threes on consecutive possessions, quickly making it a 26-16 game.

“I almost called a timeout right there,” Lackey recalled. “But I said, ‘You know what? It’s a mature team, they know what to do.’”

“He left it up to us to kind of calm down,” Sena said, “and just gather ourselves.”

“And be a mature team,” Valentine said.

Valentine answered on Melrose’s ensuing possession with a left-arc trey. Sena followed on the Buffaloes’ next possession with a driving basket. And on the Melrose possession after that, Valentine buried another leftside three, making it a 34-16 game.

Cline hit a three on Fort Sumner’s next possession, but the Buffaloes answered again on their own ensuing possession, this time with a one-handed turnaround bank shot from Sorgen that stretched Melrose’s lead to 36-19.

Fort Sumner had its deficit shaved to 38-24, before the Buffaloes made one last stampede to just about put the game out of reach. An 11-0 run — including another left-arc trey from Valentine, a tip-in by Sorgen, a right-elbow three from Jackson set up by a Logan Devaney steal, and yet another Valentine three — put Melrose up 49-24.

By the time the third quarter had expired, Melrose was still ahead by 25 (52-27), and the Buffs stayed in full command throughout the fourth.

When it was over, Melrose had won its third game in three tries against Fort Sumner this season. The top-seeded Buffaloes host 16th-seeded Dora this Saturday at 6 p.m., while the sixth-seeded Foxes host 11th-seeded Mountainair, also this Saturday at 6. Melrose and Fort Sumner are in different brackets, but could meet again in the state final.

“Hopefully,” Holland said, “we can give them a better match-up if we can get to them again.”

Tigers pull upset — The Elida Tigers had no luck against Tatum during regular-season District 4-1A play, losing both matchups by a combined 45 points.

Saturday’s district tournament championship was much different, but in the end it came out the same — the host Coyotes survived a career-best 44 points by Elida senior Tyce Delk and pulled out an 89-84 victory in triple overtime.

Senior Sebastian Jimenez scored 28 points, sophomore Hayden Mullins added 18 and junior Kivan Cardenas finished with 17 for the Coyotes (20-7), who went 9-1 during regular-season district play to win the title by a game over the Tigers (21-7). Elida used a 24-point third quarter to turn a four-point halftime deficit into a 48-47 lead heading into the final period, and the teams were locked at 65-65 through regulation.

Both teams scored seven points in each of the first two OTs before Tatum won the third 10-5.

Sophomore Rylan Creighton added 18 points for the Tigers, who earned the No. 7 seed in this week’s round-of-16 Class 1A state tournament bracket. Elida welcomes 10th-seeded Logan (15-13), a team it defeated twice during the season, in a 6 p.m. clash on Saturday.

Tatum is seeded third, meantime, and hosts No. 14 Jemez Valley at 5 p.m. on Saturday.