PV-KC Extras: Broncos Now Favored?

I headed to Piedra Vista's gym tonight knowing that the Panthers could make it tough for anyone to catch them with a win.

That would've put them at 5-0 and every other school with at least two losses.

Instead, it may be Kirtland Central that assumes the district favorite role. KC won 77-66.

Since a 50-44 loss to Farmington, the Broncos launched a rampage that included road wins at Shiprock, St. Pius and Piedra Vista.

Assuming they handle FHS at home in the rematch (the Scorps are 1-4 in District 1-4A), they'll host Shiprock and Piedra Vista in two of their last three regular season games as a 4-1 district team. Remember, they already beat both of those squads on the road.

The Broncos always had the best basketball talent, but seemed to lose focus at times.

Coach John Zecca doesn't think of the loss to Farmington as a bad game.

One thing's for sure: It motivated his players.

"We just got fired up after that. Started focusing better. Just playing all around better basketball," Ryder Hathaway said.

Said DJ Frank: "After the loss to Farmington, we just got hyped up."

Zecca wasn't ready to concede the district title if KC lost Tuesday.

"It would definitely put (PV) with the advantage, but at the same time, it is their home court. They still have to go on the road a little bit within the district and it's tough for anybody to win on the road," he said. "We've won in two very tough places. We have to really focus on taking care of our home court now."

He didn't make my gamer, but Damian Charley also played well for the Broncos.

He scored eight points (all in the second half), grabbed 13 rebounds and dished out six assists.

Zecca was concerned with the way his team allowed Dominic Valdez and company to rack up offensive rebounds.

The Panthers got 25 and converted them into 22 points compared to 13 and four for KC.

But the Broncos shot 30-of-46 for the game, an astounding 65.2 percent.

"A good team on a good night shoots 45 percent from the floor. They shot 45 percent better than we did," coach Brian Shock said.

Turnovers would've become more of a factor -- KC finished with 30 -- but the Panthers gave the ball away 21 times on their own and only reached +6 on the rebounding margin despite their offensive efforts.

KC finished with 19 assists, as many as I've seen from a local boys team all year.

"They're a good team. They're very, very aggressive. They play extremely hard," Zecca said of PV. "I think it was key for us to match their intensity and effort. We did and then some.

"We knew it was gonna be pretty much a transition game the whole game. We love to do that and it falls into what we do. But we discussed when and if it did slow down a little bit, we wanted to look inside. We've got some guys that are tough down there. We didn't get it down there as much as we'd like, but when we did we had some success."

*****

And one interesting basketball link to pass along, a profile of Darryl Dawkins.

Dawkins was the first high school player to go straight to the NBA.

Stay true and keep pounding,
Christopher