NMMI Sports Press
Despite a massive rebounding effort by Matthew McCargish and Cole Seidenberger, and an offensive outpouring by Lorenzo Peral, the Colts couldn't quite contain the visiting Ruidoso Warriors, dropping their district opener at home, 47-45.
Six of McCargish’s nine rebounds were on the offensive side, resulting in several second-chance attempts, including seven of the Colts first 10 points of the game.
Seidenberger swept the defensive side of the glass with 10 boards, along with three more on offense, for a total of 13.
Peral lead the Institute in scoring, dropping in 14 points despite limited playing time, especially in the first half, due to foul trouble.
The Colts held a slim lead for almost the entire game, winning a high-scoring first period, 18-15, then taking the second, 8-6, for a five-point advantage at the half.
But Ruidoso senior guard Logan Sandoval got hot in the third, scoring 10 of his game-high tally of 29 points in the period, putting the Warriors up 35-33 before the end of the stanza.
NMMI battled back and built another five-point precedence at the 4:42 mark in the fourth, 40-35, on a Peral steal, finished by an easy bucket on the fast break by McCargish.
Over the next four and half minutes, however, the Warriors flipped the script and held their own five-point lead, 47-42, just 11 seconds remaining in regulation.
Peral then drove the court and hit a heroic three-pointer with 5.9 second still on the clock.
NMMI immediately fouled on the inbound play, sending the Warriors to the line for two. Both shots missed, but a volley for the rebound took too much time off the clock before McCargish could come away with the ball, resulting in a failed one-armed, turn-around sling at the bucket from over three-quarters of the court.
“Everyone got a chance to touch the ball tonight, very unselfish team play with lots of ball movement,” said head NMMI coach Connor Williamson. “That’s how we want to play. We played hard but came up just short. We’ve got Tucumcari coming up on Friday, and we’ll continue to work hard to improve in all areas of our game.”
With the loss the Colt fall to 10-9 on the season and 0-1 in district. As coach Williamson said, next up will be district opponent Tucucmcari, on the road on Friday, Feb. 9 at 6:00 pm MST.
NMMI next home game will be against Dexter on Tuesday, Feb. 13, with a 6:30 pm scheduled tip-off.