Quemado Eagles pull ahead at quarterfinals

All season long, Magdalena’s Big Three carried the girls basketball team to win after win.

Coach Sara Sue Olney could pretty much count on there being least one of the trio of Jema Ganadonegro, Elia Cleveland or Jorianne Mirabal who would be knocking down shots. The importance of that is it opens up the floor for other players to also make plays.

But their scoring magic eluded them in the quarterfinals of the New Mexico girls high school state basketball tournament in a 54-30 loss to District 2-1A rival Quemado March 13 at Bernalillo High School.

The three combined for 20 points and shot 5-38 from the field. They averaged more than 35 points per game together during the season.

“We just didn’t shoot,” Olney said in explaining the outcome. “We didn’t play the way we could normally play. Shots weren’t falling.”

Once the offensive end of the game failed, it seemed to take a toll on the other aspects of the game.

“We kind of backed up instead of putting on the gas and putting on the pressure,” the coach said. “And when shots aren’t falling, it changes things up. And they hit shots, and we didn’t.”

The Steers (23-7) lost three out of four meetings with the Eagles (22-7), only winning the district tournament championship game.

“I think this is probably the worst we’ve ever shot when we played them,” Olney said. “So that’s, well, you see what the score ends up being. They just had shots fall, and we just didn’t. And, I mean, they, you know, it just, there’s really no other explanation other than we just didn’t shoot well.”

The Eagles had a distinct size advantage and they parlayed that into a robust 58-30 rebounding advantage and a 26-6 scoring edge.

And that made it particularly tough on the Steers, said senior Mirabal, who led the team with eight points.

“Well the size is definitely not on our side for sure,” she said. “I think our tallest player is maybe 5-7, maybe, on a good day. But, like I said, this was our fourth time playing them and we knew they were big, and that definitely helps them out, especially when we get into foul trouble. I mean, it’s hard. It’s hard to do anything with the big girls, man. So, yeah, that definitely played a big factor.”

It was a frustrating way to end her Steers career, Mirabal said, although she will have one more high school game as she is on the roster for the green squad for the New Mexico High School Coaches Association Red and Green All-Star Game on March 21 in Hobbs.

“Obviously, it just was not our night for multiple reasons,” she said. “I’d say especially on the offensive end, but the defensive end, too.”

No matter what the Steers tried, Quemado had an answer.

“I think we did all right, we tried putting up shots, but just we couldn’t drop a coin in the ocean if we tried,” she said. “We tried and that’s okay because we’re a shooting team. That’s what we do. We shoot, but (Wednesday), we just could not hit anything.”

And that affected the way Magdalena played on the other end, as well.

“We let him get away on the defensive end,” Mirabal said. “We knew coming in we could beat that team, but we also knew that they’d beat us twice and we beat them once. So we knew it was gonna be a dog fight, but it kind of just got away from us.”

With a strong core of players coming back, Cleveland said she sees the Steers being able to run it back again.

“We definitely need to get working more since our team has a lot of freshmen and sophomores, and there’s only going to be two seniors next year,” she said. “I think we just need to work harder defensively and offensively.”