Heading into the Yvonne Johnson Memorial Tournament, Camp Verde High School head girls basketball coach Mark Showers wanted his team to play opponents different from those they have played so far this season.
In their second round matchup with Many Farms High School on Dec. 29, they got just that.
The Cowboys won 57-48, but the game was not one-sided in the slightest.
Against a smaller, more active team, Camp Verde appeared to be headed for another easy victory with a 16-7 lead after the first quarter. Freshman center Jacy Finley and senior forward Kayla Hackett contributed from the inside with half of the team’s points in the first.
But the Lobos came out in the second quarter with a different idea.
They forced seven turnovers, grabbed 16 rebounds and went on an 11-0 scoring run to turn the game around, taking a 22-20 lead at halftime.
“They’re going to go on runs,” Showers said of the Lobos. “If you go up by 15 against a team like that, you’re not safe, you cant relax.”
A full-court zone defense from Many Farms was the main culprit to the Cowboy turnovers.
“When they went into the 1-2-2 zone, instead of getting the ball into the high post like we really work at, they were just swinging it around and not looking into the high post,” Showers said.
The 20-year coach was happy with his team’s defense in the first quarter, but decent-at-best defense in the final three quarters was masked by his team’s offensive abilities, highlighted by three-point shooting and the strong presence inside.
“I told the girls at halftime that it looked like they were playing good defense, and then when the ball went up they were taking a break,” Showers said.
Coming out of the halftime break Camp Verde took seven consecutive three-point shots, sinking three of them, including the game-tying shot from freshman guard Tanna Decker and another from sophomore guard Hope Ontiveros on the following possession. Decker said that the run of three-pointers was not part of what the team talked about during the break.
Hackett finished off a three-point play opportunity with 1:44 remaining in the third to give the Cowboys a 34-33 lead, one that they would not relinquish.
Ontiveros scored three more baskets from beyond the arc in consecutive fashion to open a 49-44 lead in the opening minutes of the final quarter.
“It just came to us,” Decker said. “Me and Hope, we just started firing and they just went in.”
Finley made two buckets of her own from the paint on the following two possessions to extend the
lead to 53-44.
Ontiveros finished with 19 points to lead the way while Decker had 14, Hackett had 12 and Finley 10 in the win.
In the Cowboys’ first game of the day, they beat Seligman High School, 58-18.
Camp Verde used its bench liberally in a game in which they led 14-5 after the first quarter and 30-10 at halftime.
The Cowboys forced a multitude of turnovers to limit the Antelopes to a sparse amount of quality possessions.
Hackett contributed nine first-half points and finished with 11 to lead Camp Verde. Finley and Ontiveros each put in 10 of their own to round out the double-digit scorers.
Semifinal results were unavailable at press time.
