2A GIRLS: Escobedo’s 18-footer helps Lynx rally to league title

A long scoring drought threatened to derail Lincoln County’s girls basketball team for the second straight game in the Class 2A Southern League tournament.

And for the second straight day, one of the team’s starting guards shot the Lynx out of trouble.

Lincoln County missed its first 10 field goals, and was 0-for-10 from the free-throw line before Leti Escobedo hit an 18-footer from the right wing with 37 seconds left in the first quarter to get the Lynx going. Lincoln County went on to claim a 44-32 victory over Mountain View in the tournament title game at Durango on Saturday.

“The last several games, besides this weekend, we started out pretty slow,” Lincoln County coach Lori Cheeney said. “I’m not sure why. We have to look at that and figure out what’s going on. The girls were super nervous about the tournament, and I think the pressure of that really affected our start. But they were able to pull out of it and overcome it enough to win.”

Escobedo’s bucket accounted for Lincoln County’s only points of the first quarter, but the Lynx forced 12 turnovers and only trailed 7-2.

The basket started an 11-2 run, capped by a runner by Escobedo that gave the Lynx their first lead at 11-9 with 2:17 to go in the half.

A steal and layup by Kourtney Gloeckner with 11 seconds to go in the half pushed Lincoln County’s lead to 17-11 at the break.

Gloeckner was the hero Friday, ending an eight-minute scoring drought by hitting a pair of 3-pointers in the final minute of a 33-32 semifinal win over Calvary Chapel.

The Lynx finally looked comfortable in the third quarter, holding the Saints without a field goal, and pushing the lead to 38-17 going into the final period.

“The third quarter we were finally playing the way we’re able to play,” Cheeney said. “And then the fourth quarter when Mountain View started to make a run at us, I think our girls just panicked, the pressure got to them again and they fell back into some bad habits.”

Mountain View made only one field goal in the fourth quarter, but shot 20 free throws to close the gap. The Saints got as close as eight points on a pair of free throws by Briana Marruffo with 2:16 to go that made it 40-32.

“This team had a tendency at the beginning of the year to just slap and reach for everything,” Cheeney said. “And we’ve been working so hard on playing defense with our feet and not reaching and it’s really been coming around toward the end of league play. But they just panicked this weekend. They reverted back to some bad habits in the fourth quarter, but we were able to overcome it, or at least get through it.”

Escobedo finished with 17 points to lead Lincoln County, and Lacee Babcock and Jaycee Wadsworth each had nine rebounds for the Lynx.

Marruffo paced Mountain View with 22 points and eight rebounds.

Both teams advance to next week’s state tournament at North Valleys. Lincoln County plays White Pine at 3 p.m. on Friday, and Mountain View takes on Pershing County at 6:20.

“It means a lot to them,” Cheeney said of winning the league tournament. “They’ve worked hard to come this far, and at this point it means everything to them.”