NMMI Sports Press
The New Mexico Military Institute Colt basketball team took home the top team and individual awards in this year’s Dexter Invitational, downing the Jal Panthers in a two-point nail-biter, 48-46, in the championship match.
It was a game of runs with over 10 lead changes and near double-digit leads for both teams, but perhaps the most important points of the game came from the tournament’s Most Valuable Player selection, NMMI freshman Hector Soto.
With less than a minute remaining in the game, and a six-point Institute lead, 46-40, Colt guard Daniel Xibille got a steal and dribbled down for what should have been a fairly easy lay-up. The shot came too hard off the glass, hit the front of the rim and back up and out, but Soto, only 5-foot-7, was already up in the air to get the rebound and put-back, for NMMI’s final two points of the game.
“It was good to win the MVP, but this game was about getting rebounds and good defense,” said Soto. “I was just out there playing and I appreciate all the effort of the entire team.”
“I knew Soto was a player when I first saw him in practice,” said Head Colt coach Connor Williamson. “I knew I was going to start him pretty early on, but I didn’t expect a tournament MVP his first season – didn’t know he would come this far this soon.”
The Panthers scored the final six points of the contest and had several attempts to knot the score in the final 30 seconds, but a stingy Colt defense only allowed contested shots, and the Colts gobbled up glass, preventing any extra attempts.
Soto led the Colts in scoring with a trio or treys and 17 total points. Xibille hit the double-figure mark as well with 11, and down on the low post, big-man Clay Stroh powered in seven.
Three Colt players were named to the Dexter Invitational All-Tournament team: Junior point guard Ricardo Mata, NMMI’s primary ball-handler; Xibille, the Colt’s leading scorer; and Soto with the MVP, the Institute’s expert from behind the arc.
With the tourney win, NMMI moves to 7-2 overall and is riding a five-game win-streak.
“This is just a good group of kids,” summed up coach Williamson about NMMI’s three-game effort at this year’s tournament and the nine games they’ve played thus far in the season. “They fight all the way to the end every time. They really, really play as a team and pick up each other’s slack as needed.”
The Colts will head home for their next match, taking on the Ruidoso Warriors on Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 5:30 pm in the Godfrey Athletic Center on the NMMI campus.