Magdalena Steer Stampede basketball tournament

Boys and girls varsity basketball teams from eight schools competed in this year’s Magdalena Steer Stampede tournament: Magdalena, Socorro, Oak Grove, Navajo Pine, To’hajiilee, Texico, Grady and Legacy. Each team got to play one game a day in the three day Boys and girls varsity basketball teams from eight schools competed in this year’s Magdalena Steer Stampede tournament: Magdalena, Socorro, Oak Grove, Navajo Pine, To’hajiilee, Texico, Grady and Legacy. Each team got to play one game a day in the three day tournament lasting from Thursday to Saturday, Dec. 4-6.

Socorro and Magdalena teams did not face each other during the tournament, but they did play against each other on Tuesday, Dec. 2, before the Magdalena Steer Stampede. That day, the Magdalena girls won their second game of the season 58-12 over the Lady Warriors. The Socorro Warriors beat the Steers 43-41 in their contest on Tuesday with a buzzer beating shot by #10 Isaiah “Peanut” Silva.

Magdalena girls

The Magdalena girls continued their strong start to this season with dominant wins in each of the three tournament games. Their three big wins took them to first place in the tournament. They were even up by a lot more than just 10 points in the game against Texico until the last couple minutes.

“I think it was a success. I mostly just wanted us to get out here and just get rolling and get playing and working hard and figuring out what we can and can’t do. Texico is a great team, so that’s always a good challenge for us. And then we’ll go see them in their tournament in a couple weeks. And so the physicality that they bring, the size that they bring, prepares us for our district a lot.” Head Coach Sara Sue Olney said.

The success of the varsity team against 2A and 3A schools so far this season is a sign of more greatness to come. The Magdalena girls keep on improving and showing new strengths in each game. Yet Olney and the team are still always reflecting on their games for ways to stay consistent and improve even more, with focus on their mental games.

“As long as we can continue to just work hard, and mostly [on] our stuff, our problem is just us. We don’t really worry too much about everybody else. I mean, we talk about size and boxing out and things like that, but if we take care of our business and what we play like, I think we’re in the game no matter what.” Olney said.

#23 Jewel Mirabal, #5 Elia Cleveland and #2 Jema Ganadonegro were named All Tourney. Ganadonegro scored an impressive 33 points in the final game against Texico and 58 total points in the tournament. Cleveland scored 10 points and 33 total points in the tournament. Mirabal scored four, five and seven points in the three tournament games and is averaging 7.3 points per game so far this season.

Olney recognized the efforts of the All Tourney players, but she spread the shoutouts to all of the players.

“I mean, you have the All Tourneys and everything else. But it’s like I told them in the locker room, those guys don’t get All Tourneys without…all 12 of us on the bench. And so, yeah, we have people that can score really good and that play really hard, but at any time, we’re a team. And so it’s everybody.” Olney said.

The Magdalena girls are undefeated at 6-0 for the season. Other recent and upcoming games:

12/9 At Alamo, W 48-45

12/16 At home versus Oak Grove, 5:30 p.m.

12/18-20 At Texico Tournament

Magdalena boys

The Steers dropped their first two games of the season to bigger schools, both 3A schools. The challenging early competition and hard practices have led to quick improvements. They won two out of their three games at the tournament. They picked up a win against To’hajiilee, and then lost to a Grady team that went on to second place in the tournament.

Head Coach Jory Mirabal attributes the successes of the team to the mindsets of his players.

“We have great attitudes to begin with. Our play is improving because they have good attitudes. They’re working their tails off. So every game that they get on the floor, I see something else that we’ve gotten, that we’ve improved.” Mirabal said.

In their third game of the tournament, the Steers beat 2A Oak Grove with relative ease to finish at third place.

“A win’s nice to have, that’s for sure.” Mirabal said.

#21 Kanaan Stephens led the team in scoring in two of the games and had 30 total points in the tournament. His brother, Ky Stephens, led the team in scoring in the other game with 11 points, and Ky had 23 total points in the three games.

Mirabal didn’t single out particular players for shoutouts though. He instead recognized the efforts of the entire team.

“Kind of happy with all of them.” Mirabal said.

The Steers won two out of their three tournament games and are now 2-4 for the season. Other recent and upcoming games:

12/9 At Alamo, L 50-45

12/16 At home versus Oak Grove, 7 p.m.

12/18-20 At Texico Tournament.

Socorro girls

The Lady Warriors had a tough start to the season going up against the powerhouse Magdalena team. They are improving with every single game that they play though, and even won their first game of the season during the tournament by beating Oak Grove by 29 points.

“We’re executing our defense really well, but we are having trouble finishing our shots. That still has part to do with being a really young team, but each game, we’re hitting small goals, and we’re getting a little bit better each time. We’re also learning how to play with each other, have that team chemistry. So overall, I feel that we did really, really well, also for only having a couple weeks of practice before any of our games started. It’s coming together pretty well.” Head Coach Rebecca Apodaca said.

The Socorro girls upped their offense in their first tournament game by scoring 33 points in their loss to To’hajiilee. They were getting lots of opportunities though.

“Yes, definitely. We need to work on completing our shots. We shoot about five or six times on the offense side, and then also our free throws.” Apodaca said.

On the second day, they scored 41 points and beat Oak Grove by 29 points for their first season win. In their third game, against Navajo Pine, they were even at the end of the first quarter and up 22-16 at halftime. Foul trouble and other mistakes allowed the lead to slip away. In the tournament, the Lady Warriors had an excellent run that really showed off their potential: the second half of the first game, the second game altogether and the first half of the third game. As they build up their stamina, basketball IQ and consistency they will be getting a lot more wins this season.

Apodaca gave shoutouts to a couple of players in particular for their hard work.

“Tatjana Castillo stepped up this year being our point guard because we didn’t really have any experience. Her and Tatum are sharing that position. But Tatum stepped up, being a freshman. And she’s really, really helping us on our defense, to make it a complete trap, because she does really well with the trap.” Apodaca said.

Tatjana Castillo was named All Tourney for her efforts. She scored 10, 12 and 14 points in the three games of the tournament, plus she had 16 rebounds, 14 steals and 5 assists in those three games. #3 Tatum Brown scored four points in the final game, and she contributed a lot more to the team with her energetic play on offense and defense.

The Lady Warriors are now 1-4 for the season.

Other recent and upcoming games:

12/9 At home versus Belen, L 65-27

12/11-13 At Eunice Tournament, starting at 5 p.m. Thursday.

12/19 At home versus East Mountain, 5 and 6:30 p.m.

Socorro boys

The Socorro Warriors won one out of their three games in the tournament. They faced a tough first game against the Texico Wolverines, who easily won all three of their games to finish as tournament champions. A solid day two got them a win over Navajo Pine, and then on day three some costly mistakes hurt them in a game that was otherwise looking to be very competitive.

“I’m very happy with my kids. They performed well, a few mental mistakes, but I’m very happy for the season and for everybody on the team. We have a good chance of making a run at district if we can fix our small mistakes and get mentally strong. And I think we can. We have a great team.” Head Coach Tim Townsend said.

Against To’hajiilee in the third game, the Warriors stayed pretty even in the first quarter. Struggles for Socorro in the second and third quarters let To’hajiilee push way ahead. The Warriors stepped up and back into the game in the fourth quarter, but didn’t have enough time to erase the deficit completely.

“Well, the last game, I want to give a shout out to Joey Montoya. He kind of got down on himself, and I put him back in the game and made him earn what could possibly be a starting position.” Townsend said.

#4 Joe Montoya of the Warriors scored 24 points in the final game of the tournament against To’hajiilee. His four 3-pointers, four 2-pointers, and six out of six free throws helped the Warriors fight back from a 30 point deficit to only being down 14 points in the end. Other players stepped up as well when some starters were not on the court. #1 Brendan Reichenbach scored eight points and two other players contributed five points in that final game.

“As for the tournament, just a shout out to the team for being team players. I mean, they all stepped up. They cheered for each other, they never got mad at each other. So with that said, it’s a big win when you have a team that can always lift each other up and be negative towards each other.” Townsend said.

The Warriors are now 2-2 for the season. Their next games are at the Moriarty Tournament from Dec. 11-13, times TBA.

Socorro and Magdalena game results from the tournament:

Day 1, Thursday, Dec. 4:

Magdalena boys beat To’hajiilee 49-25.

Socorro girls lost to To’hajiilee 57-33.

Socorro boys lost to Texico 61-25.

Magdalena girls beat Navajo Pine 67-20.

Day 2, Friday, Dec. 5:

Socorro Warriors beat Navajo Pine 66-45.

Socorro Lady Warriors beat the Oak Grove Owls 43-14.

Magdalena girls beat Legacy 53-16.

Magdalena boys lost to Grady 45-31.

Day 3, Saturday, Dec. 6:

The Magdalena girls finished as tournament champions by beating Texico 59-49.

The Magdalena boys finished at 3rd placing after their 36-21 win against Oak Grove.

The Socorro Lady Warriors lost 47-34 to Navajo Pine.

The Socorro Warriors lost 67-53 to To’hajiilee.

tournament lasting from Thursday to Saturday, Dec. 4-6.

Socorro and Magdalena teams did not face each other during the tournament, but they did play against each other on Tuesday, Dec. 2, before the Magdalena Steer Stampede. That day, the Magdalena girls won their second game of the season 58-12 over the Lady Warriors. The Socorro Warriors beat the Steers 43-41 in their contest on Tuesday with a buzzer beating shot by #10 Isaiah “Peanut” Silva.

Magdalena girls

The Magdalena girls continued their strong start to this season with dominant wins in each of the three tournament games. Their three big wins took them to first place in the tournament. They were even up by a lot more than just 10 points in the game against Texico until the last couple minutes.

“I think it was a success. I mostly just wanted us to get out here and just get rolling and get playing and working hard and figuring out what we can and can’t do. Texico is a great team, so that’s always a good challenge for us. And then we’ll go see them in their tournament in a couple weeks. And so the physicality that they bring, the size that they bring, prepares us for our district a lot.” Head Coach Sara Sue Olney said.

The success of the varsity team against 2A and 3A schools so far this season is a sign of more greatness to come. The Magdalena girls keep on improving and showing new strengths in each game. Yet Olney and the team are still always reflecting on their games for ways to stay consistent and improve even more, with focus on their mental games.

“As long as we can continue to just work hard, and mostly [on] our stuff, our problem is just us. We don’t really worry too much about everybody else. I mean, we talk about size and boxing out and things like that, but if we take care of our business and what we play like, I think we’re in the game no matter what.” Olney said.

#23 Jewel Mirabal, #5 Elia Cleveland and #2 Jema Ganadonegro were named All Tourney. Ganadonegro scored an impressive 33 points in the final game against Texico and 58 total points in the tournament. Cleveland scored 10 points and 33 total points in the tournament. Mirabal scored four, five and seven points in the three tournament games and is averaging 7.3 points per game so far this season.

Olney recognized the efforts of the All Tourney players, but she spread the shoutouts to all of the players.

“I mean, you have the All Tourneys and everything else. But it’s like I told them in the locker room, those guys don’t get All Tourneys without…all 12 of us on the bench. And so, yeah, we have people that can score really good and that play really hard, but at any time, we’re a team. And so it’s everybody.” Olney said.

The Magdalena girls are undefeated at 6-0 for the season. Other recent and upcoming games:

12/9 At Alamo, W 48-45

12/16 At home versus Oak Grove, 5:30 p.m.

12/18-20 At Texico Tournament

Magdalena boys

The Steers dropped their first two games of the season to bigger schools, both 3A schools. The challenging early competition and hard practices have led to quick improvements. They won two out of their three games at the tournament. They picked up a win against To’hajiilee, and then lost to a Grady team that went on to second place in the tournament.

Head Coach Jory Mirabal attributes the successes of the team to the mindsets of his players.

“We have great attitudes to begin with. Our play is improving because they have good attitudes. They’re working their tails off. So every game that they get on the floor, I see something else that we’ve gotten, that we’ve improved.” Mirabal said.

In their third game of the tournament, the Steers beat 2A Oak Grove with relative ease to finish at third place.

“A win’s nice to have, that’s for sure.” Mirabal said.

#21 Kanaan Stephens led the team in scoring in two of the games and had 30 total points in the tournament. His brother, Ky Stephens, led the team in scoring in the other game with 11 points, and Ky had 23 total points in the three games.

Mirabal didn’t single out particular players for shoutouts though. He instead recognized the efforts of the entire team.

“Kind of happy with all of them.” Mirabal said.

The Steers won two out of their three tournament games and are now 2-4 for the season. Other recent and upcoming games:

12/9 At Alamo, L 50-45

12/16 At home versus Oak Grove, 7 p.m.

12/18-20 At Texico Tournament.

Socorro girls

The Lady Warriors had a tough start to the season going up against the powerhouse Magdalena team. They are improving with every single game that they play though, and even won their first game of the season during the tournament by beating Oak Grove by 29 points.

“We’re executing our defense really well, but we are having trouble finishing our shots. That still has part to do with being a really young team, but each game, we’re hitting small goals, and we’re getting a little bit better each time. We’re also learning how to play with each other, have that team chemistry. So overall, I feel that we did really, really well, also for only having a couple weeks of practice before any of our games started. It’s coming together pretty well.” Head Coach Rebecca Apodaca said.

The Socorro girls upped their offense in their first tournament game by scoring 33 points in their loss to To’hajiilee. They were getting lots of opportunities though.

“Yes, definitely. We need to work on completing our shots. We shoot about five or six times on the offense side, and then also our free throws.” Apodaca said.

On the second day, they scored 41 points and beat Oak Grove by 29 points for their first season win. In their third game, against Navajo Pine, they were even at the end of the first quarter and up 22-16 at halftime. Foul trouble and other mistakes allowed the lead to slip away. In the tournament, the Lady Warriors had an excellent run that really showed off their potential: the second half of the first game, the second game altogether and the first half of the third game. As they build up their stamina, basketball IQ and consistency they will be getting a lot more wins this season.

Apodaca gave shoutouts to a couple of players in particular for their hard work.

“Tatjana Castillo stepped up this year being our point guard because we didn’t really have any experience. Her and Tatum are sharing that position. But Tatum stepped up, being a freshman. And she’s really, really helping us on our defense, to make it a complete trap, because she does really well with the trap.” Apodaca said.

Tatjana Castillo was named All Tourney for her efforts. She scored 10, 12 and 14 points in the three games of the tournament, plus she had 16 rebounds, 14 steals and 5 assists in those three games. #3 Tatum Brown scored four points in the final game, and she contributed a lot more to the team with her energetic play on offense and defense.

The Lady Warriors are now 1-4 for the season.

Other recent and upcoming games:

12/9 At home versus Belen, L 65-27

12/11-13 At Eunice Tournament, starting at 5 p.m. Thursday.

12/19 At home versus East Mountain, 5 and 6:30 p.m.

Socorro boys

The Socorro Warriors won one out of their three games in the tournament. They faced a tough first game against the Texico Wolverines, who easily won all three of their games to finish as tournament champions. A solid day two got them a win over Navajo Pine, and then on day three some costly mistakes hurt them in a game that was otherwise looking to be very competitive.

“I’m very happy with my kids. They performed well, a few mental mistakes, but I’m very happy for the season and for everybody on the team. We have a good chance of making a run at district if we can fix our small mistakes and get mentally strong. And I think we can. We have a great team.” Head Coach Tim Townsend said.

Against To’hajiilee in the third game, the Warriors stayed pretty even in the first quarter. Struggles for Socorro in the second and third quarters let To’hajiilee push way ahead. The Warriors stepped up and back into the game in the fourth quarter, but didn’t have enough time to erase the deficit completely.

“Well, the last game, I want to give a shout out to Joey Montoya. He kind of got down on himself, and I put him back in the game and made him earn what could possibly be a starting position.” Townsend said.

#4 Joe Montoya of the Warriors scored 24 points in the final game of the tournament against To’hajiilee. His four 3-pointers, four 2-pointers, and six out of six free throws helped the Warriors fight back from a 30 point deficit to only being down 14 points in the end. Other players stepped up as well when some starters were not on the court. #1 Brendan Reichenbach scored eight points and two other players contributed five points in that final game.

“As for the tournament, just a shout out to the team for being team players. I mean, they all stepped up. They cheered for each other, they never got mad at each other. So with that said, it’s a big win when you have a team that can always lift each other up and be negative towards each other.” Townsend said.

The Warriors are now 2-2 for the season. Their next games are at the Moriarty Tournament from Dec. 11-13, times TBA.

Socorro and Magdalena game results from the tournament:

Day 1, Thursday, Dec. 4:

Magdalena boys beat To’hajiilee 49-25.

Socorro girls lost to To’hajiilee 57-33.

Socorro boys lost to Texico 61-25.

Magdalena girls beat Navajo Pine 67-20.

Day 2, Friday, Dec. 5:

Socorro Warriors beat Navajo Pine 66-45.

Socorro Lady Warriors beat the Oak Grove Owls 43-14.

Magdalena girls beat Legacy 53-16.

Magdalena boys lost to Grady 45-31.

Day 3, Saturday, Dec. 6:

The Magdalena girls finished as tournament champions by beating Texico 59-49.

The Magdalena boys finished at 3rd placing after their 36-21 win against Oak Grove.

The Socorro Lady Warriors lost 47-34 to Navajo Pine.

The Socorro Warriors lost 67-53 to To’hajiilee.