The Santa Teresa Desert Warriors were sitting pretty. They had beat the Deming Wildcats twice in the last week and now they had a home game against the Wildcats. Only this time it was for all the marbles. With the 3-4A District Championship Title on the line, the Warriors were ready. If the Warriors prevailed they would hoist the plaque as 2007-2008 champs.

The Wildcats on the other hand had to take their lose and take on the Colts of Silver City. The Wildcats did just that, beating Silver 78-56 for the second seed spot and the right to play Santa Teresa... again. THE game was on!

The Match Up.
The playoffs started with a the Warriors taking on the Wildcats to decide the district's top seed. In that game Santa Teresa jumped all over Deming 65-45 to win the right to defend their top seed on their home court. In that game played on a neutral court in Las Cruces; Deming seemed to be out of rhythm and heart. According to Deming head coach Paul Maynes “We really didn’t represent well last week... we came out flat”. That was evident in some poor shooting by the Wildcats. Santa Teresa’s head coach Robert Haack said, “Deming missed a lot of shots when we played them in Las Cruces last week.”

Santa Teresa had the momentum but, after Deming beat Silver, they knew they had their work cut out for them because the Wildcats wanted revenge.

During the regular season Santa Teresa and Deming split games with Wildcats winning the first one 70-57 in Deming. The Warriors returned the favor last week at Santa Teresa, eeking out a victory over Deming 62-59. Had Deming won that game they would have had the number one seed locked up.

Now, Santa Teresa had two victories in a row over Deming. But Deming had fought back and now had a big win over Silver. The questions about the championship game mounted.

Which Deming team would show up? Could Santa Teresa continue the streak and make it three in a row? “Hat Trick”! Would the Wildcats regroup and fight hard for another win?

All those questions were answered Saturday night on the Desert Warrior’s home court. Both teams brought their "A" game and dueled it out in a hard fought game to decide the 3-4A title. Deming hung on for dear life while surviving a valiant comeback surge by Santa Teresa. With the game undecided until the last seconds, Deming won 42-40 to take possesion of the district title.

Tale of Two Halves.
The game was a tale of two very different halves. The first half was more akin to a heavy weight slug fest with both brawlers leveling blows at the other. After a slow start the Warriors were up 8-5 after the first period. With a little over four minutes to play in the half Santa Teresa hung on to a 14-13 lead. Little was settled in the remaining four minutes because after the dust cleared in this scratch and claw half; the score was tied 22-22.

Maynes said “Our game plan with all of our coaches... and that is a good thing about our coaching staff, we all stick together. We had to stop Paz [Kevin Paz] and Brewster [Andrez Brewster]   “Every time we’ve played them they’ve hurt us quite a bit.” Deming assistant coach Pepe Alvarado said “From the first quarter our kids put a lot of pressure on them and they stopped them.”

Santa Teresa coach Haack said “I knew that Deming was going to be at their best tonight but we were ready.” Haack continued, “I thought the first half was pretty even. We’d make some shots and they responded. I think we had an about five or six point lead and they came back on us. So it went back and forth.”

The second half couldn’t have been more different from the first. Deming completely shut down Santa Teresa allowing the Warriors a total of only three points in the third period.

Maynes said “We put together a "Triangle & 2" defense to shut down Brewster and Paz. We made sure that we had two guys on them at all times. We had the other three guys in a zone. They did a great job. Believe it or not. This week was the first time that we worked on [the triangle & 2] in practice.

Haack said, “I’m unhappy with the way we played in the third quarter.” Haack added, “We had trouble with [the "Triangle & 2"] and we were backing out of shots... it turned into a disaster. I thought we played better in the first half.”

Anthony Lopez, # 24, the Wildcats star forward and game MVP said “Coach [Maynes] told us that the most important part was our defense. We had to concentrate and play good defense. We shifted our defense in the third quarter and they couldn’t penetrate.”

Assistant coach Pepe Alvarado added “... Our kids put a lot of pressure on them [Warrior’s Brewster and Paz] and they stopped them.”

After three quarters it was Deming’s game to loose. And they almost did. Leading 33-25 going into the fourth period, the Wildcats tried to continue shutting down the Warriors sharp shooters in the fourth quarter. But the Warriors were not about to go down without a fight.

Santa Teresa adjusted and passed the ball better causing weaknesses in the Wildcat zone. Paz and Brewster made shots that they couldn’t in the third quarter. Paz scored all of his 11-points in the fourth period.

After leading by as much as 11 points the Warriors started closing the gap. With only 2:31 left in the game the score was now 38-31 in favor of Deming.

The Wildcat lead was shaved down to six points but Josh Uzueta # 23, catching the Warriors off guard, took a long pass and raced for the basket. Those two points would end up the difference in the game. Uzueta led all scorers with 16 points.

The Warriors had one last chance to win the game or at least tie the game and force an overtime. With 24 seconds left and the Wildcats needing to in bounds the ball; Warrior forward David Rodriguez trapped the Deming player and got the steal. The only problem for the Warriors was that the ball bounced out of bounds. Deming got to keep the ball.

When the final buzzer sounded the small but vocal crowd of Wildcat faithful and the Wildcat Cheerleaders swarmed their team and celebrated for what seemed like an eternity to the Santa Teresa team that sat on their bench waiting in agony for the post-game ceremonies to begin... and more importantly to conclude.

Did the Warrior comeback cause some concern? “Oh, yeah.” Definitely. Because it had happened to us all season, said Deming assistant coach Pepe Alvarado. (Deming lost 6 games by 6 points or less including the last regular season loss against Santa Teresa. Also, the Wildcats had a big lead over Sandia only to lose it and end up in OT where they lost by 5 points.)

Coach Haack was proud of his Warriors for keeping their composure and not folding after being down. “Our kids really did a great job on that comeback in the fourth quarter. We finally got a streak going and made some shots and got some rhythm back in our offense. We got a steal at the end but we had a tough break when that ball bounced out of bounds with about 24 seconds left”, said Haack.

Giving his mentor, coach Haack, a lot of credit for the Warrior’s great surge in the fourth quarter, Maynes said “I coached under coach Haack as an assistant. And we knew that there was going to be plenty of fight left in them.”

Maynes needed to make sure his team didn’t fall apart under the pressure of the Warrior surge, saying “I’ve always told my kids... ‘Basketball is a game of runs’. And that was a huge run by Santa Teresa in the fourth quarter. We were just able to put a stop on them at the end. We should have taken care of the ball better there at the end. We shouldn’t have shot as often. But, you know these kids are 16 and 17 years old and sometimes they forget... they see the lane open and they’ll shoot”... instead of running out the clock.

Still... the new District 3-4A Boys Basketball Champions for 2007-2008 are the Deming Wildcats. The Wildcats regained the coveted crown after last wining the district title in 2005.

Assistant coach Alvarado said of this championship win, “It means a lot... Definitely. Especially for our kids. They played very well defensively. We worked all season long... especially for this moment tonight.”

Maynes added “It is great to end the district play on a win... especially with an away from home win.” That is a pretty good way to finish district play... especially since this is Maynes’ ‘first year as head coach at Deming.” He was an assistant coach at Deming when they last won the district title.

It was a devastating loss for the Warriors but they played tough and the title just escaped them. They have to shake off this loss and get ready for some more basketball as they will be in the state tournament.

Santa Teresa will get another chance to get into the win column. Haack said “We’ll get a regional game in the state tournament next Friday or Saturday... and then if we win we’ll go to Albuquerque.”

Great effort Warriors... Good luck this weekend.

Prepared by UVB staff.

(Photos: Brax - Valley Publishing Company)

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