The Camp Verde High School girls basketball team used its size inside and a big second quarter to put away the visiting Payson High School Longhorns, 40-26, on Dec. 5.
While Payson featured tall players of its own, the Cowboys had the size to match, even in the absence of senior Kayla Hackett, who missed the game with strep throat.
“They struggled offensively because Jacy Finley is such a big kid inside, it limited their big kids in getting putbacks,” 20-year head coach Mark Showers said. “Jacy and Marisa Presmyk and Bennett Holm, they did a nice job of pulling down rebounds and not giving up second chances.”
Finley is a 6-foot-2 freshman who towered over her opponents and easily collected every ball that fell her way.
Tied at nine after the first quarter, the Cowboys rattled off 15 points in the second to open a 24-15 lead at the break. Nine of those points came by way of two three-pointers from sophomore guard Hope Ontiveros and one from freshman guard Tanna Decker.
“Hope Ontiveros shot the ball well from the outside,” Flowers said. “We haven’t done a very good job of shooting the ball well from the outside. [With] both Hope and Tanna Decker, we’ve been working a lot on outside shooting because if we’re able to hit outside shots it just opens the game up.”
Throughout the game, Camp Verde ran a press defense for the first time all season, increasing the pressure on the Payson ball handlers at all times. Despite the fact it had never worked on the defense, Showers was satisfied with his team’s execution.
“I think defensively we did a great job,” Showers said. “We just basically set it up in the locker room and they knew what do and we were able to get a few steals.”
Early in the third quarter the Longhorns were able to chip the deficit down to five points, due in part to switching to a press defense as well. Despite that, Ontiveros matched with a five-point effort of her own to close out the quarter for a 34-23 advantage to the home team.
Because of the pressure both teams put on one another, they began to commit easy turnovers.
“We have to have better passes, we got more turnovers than we should’ve,” Decker said.
Showers thought that the offensive execution was poor when faced with pressure.
“When someone goes man we should be able to get into our halfcourt offense and get some nice easy scores,” he said. “We didn’t do great [under pressure]. We weren’t able to get into an offense and we threw the ball away a lot. They [Payson] turned the ball over and didn’t make their free throws, so that helped us in that respect.”
In the fourth, the Longhorns found themselves at the foul line on six different occasions, but only managed to sink one of their 11 free throws. Camp Verde was 4-10 from the charity stripe in the final frame.
All told, Decker recognized that it was a group effort that propelled the Cowboys to victory.
“I feel like we worked good as a team even though one of our players was out,” Decker said. “We need to just keep working on defense and remember to get into a press and work hard and don’t give up and give all our effort.”
Ontiveros led the way for Camp Verde with 16 points, while Payson senior Sadie Sweeney netted six to top the scoring column for the visitors.
On Dec. 9, the Cowboys took on the Anthem Prep Eagles, where they would improve to 4-1 on the season with a 30-27 victory.
Camp Verde also faced off with Chino Valley Tuesday, Dec. 13, but results were unavailable at press time.
The Cowboys next play at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16, at Horizon Honors High School.
