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Lady Thunderbirds defeat Lady Hawks
Posted: Jan 13, 2020

Lady Thunderbirds defeat Lady Hawks

Lady Thunderbirds defeat Lady Hawks

EDUARDO MIRANDA NEWS-SUN
January 11, 2020

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EDUARDO MIRANDA/NEWS-SUN  Lady Thunderbird Dawnyel Liar is able to take the contact from Lady Hawk Averie Benson and make her shot. Benson was called for a blocking foul. The Lady T-Bids defeated the Lady Hawks 67-48 Thursday night in Caster Activity Center.

 

The NJCAA sixth ranked New Mexico Junior College women's basketball team returned home to Caster Activity Center after playing at the Bossier Parish Classic. At the Classic, the Lady Thunderbirds defeated the former ranked third and fourth teams. On Thursday night

Caster Activity Center, the Lady Thunderbirds welcomed Howard College in a Western Junior College Athletic Conference play. At the end of the four quarters in a lackluster performance, the Lady Thunderbirds defeated the Lady Hawks 67-48 to improve to 12-4 overall and 3-0 in WJCAC. The win keeps NMJC in a tie for first place with South Plains College in WJCAC.

Dawnyel Liar led the Lady Thunderbirds with a game high 21 points coming off the bench. She finished with a double double grabbing 14 rebounds, had three assists, and four steals. Amaya Lewis the former Hobbs Lady Eagle was the only other NMJC player to reach double digit scoring with 12 points. She grabbed six boards and had an assist. Mayra Caicedo had five steals in the game.

In the win the Lady Thunderbirds overcame a stagnant halfcourt offense and a lackluster overall performance. Lady Thunderbird head coach Drew Sanders saw nothing good from his team's win.

"Nothing," Sanders said. "We played really uninspired and flat. We had a really bad week of practice. We had some internal issues and they played like that. No execution and you play like you practice, and we practiced really poorly for four straight games. Went out and let an inspired Howard team play with us. They actually outplayed us other than turning the ball over. If we hadn't forced turnovers we would have lost tonight."

NMJC forced Howard College to commit 30 turnovers resulting 21 points for the Lady Thunderbirds. NMJC committed 22 turnovers but was able to recover and hold the Lady Hawks to only 21 points off turnovers.

Throughout all four quarters, the Lady Thunderbirds struggled to score in their halfcourt offense. The starting five of Lewis, Ebony Horton, Caicedo, Zaria Dorsey, and Selina Dockery struggled to find a way to score on the box-and-1 zone used by the Lady Hawks. NMJC began by getting the ball to Dorsey in the paint early on, but Howard College made the adjustment to send help from the weak side creating turnovers and getting Dorsey into foul trouble. When Dorsey came off the Lady Thunderbirds used Eliana Cabral and Maria Cecelia Dos Santos, but the halfcourt offense continued to struggle. NMJC went to a high and low post without Dorsey, but the weak side help continued to cause problems.

As much as the zone defense hurt the Lady Thunderbirds, the only saving grace in the first half came when the team played to its strength of getting out in transition. They scored 22 points in the fast break, and when they ran the Lady Thunderbirds looked like a better offensive team. It allowed NMJC to get into the paint, where it scored 46 points, and on many occasions got and-1 or free throw opportunities. Even when they could not score in transition the Lady Thunderbirds made better chances at the rim then their halfcourt offense created.

As good as the transition game was for the Lady Thunderbirds, they allowed the Lady Hawks to set up their zone defense. Sanders said this team is usually much better at attacking zones and executing their halfcourt offense, but blames bad practicing and internal problems to the bad play.

Besides the transition play, the only other positives for the Lady Thunderbirds in the win were the defensive effort shown in the second and fourth quarters. They held the Lady Hawks to nine points in each quarter. In those quarters NMJC showed a much more aggressive approach on the defensive end and began to jump into the passing lanes. The on ball defense of Lewis, Caicedo, and Liar off the bench resulted in steals and easy buckets. That allowed the Lady Thunderbirds to halt an inspired Howard College team that hung around long enough to make the few fans in attendance believe they could see an upset. With five minutes left in the fourth, NMJC did just enough to secure another win in WJCAC and remain unbeaten and tied for first place.

Sanders looks at the win in another light, and hopes his team learns from it and goes back to playing as the team that defeated two ranked teams in back-to-back games. For it to happen his team must avoid coming out playing flat and be able to execute against a zone defense.

"They came out in the zone and we are not executing," Sanders said. "Inside the kids aren't working and we are not shooting the ball well from the perimeter. The execution was really, really poor and I was really disappointed in them to see that played last week and how well we played. Then to come back home and play this poorly. But in conference a win is a win and you are not going to play well every night. I'm hoping we learned a lesson and we will come back to gym and go to work."

The Lady Thunderbirds returns to the hardwood on Monday with a road trip against South Plains College. Tip off is set at 4:45 p.m. Looking ahead to the game Sanders is hoping his team does some soul searching and come out ready to play. He added if they play against South Plains College the No. 2 ranked team with the same effort they showed against Howard College then South Plains will run them out of the gym.