Horsemen score OT win in opening round of Class 4A state tourney
St. Michael’s needs extra frame to defeat Sandia Prep, next faces No. 1 Bernalillo
There’s a reason the St. Michael’s Horsemen have 13 players on their postseason roster. Sometimes, it takes every single player to keep a season alive. St. Michael’s used depth, poise and wiliness to overcome a hot-shooting Albuquerque Sandia Prep team, but the Horsemen lived to see another day and another game with a 72-65 overtime win in the opening round of the Class 4A State Boys Basketball Tournament on Saturday night in Perez-Shelley Gymnasium. Up next for the eighth-seeded Horsemen (14-15) is No. 1 Bernalillo in an 8:15 p.m. Wednesday quarterfinal matchup in the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho.
It might take the entire Horsemen village to pull off the upset of the 27-1 Spartans, but St. Michael’s isn’t opposed to trying.
“All we wanted was just to get to Santa Ana,” junior forward Dominic Morgan said. “That’s where we want to go. And getting a shot at this number one team is huge for us because we got nothing to lose.”
If anyone embodies the “whatever it takes mindset,” it is the 5-foot-11 Morgan. Facing a Sundevils lineup that had four players at least 6 feet tall, Morgan hustled and scrapped his way into a 19 point, nine rebound, two steal performance. Eight of those boards came on the offensive end as he outhustled No. 9 Sandia Prep for those precious extra opportunities.
His three-point play off a putback with 2:36 left in regulation sparked an 8-0 run to erase a 56-49 Sundevils lead. Right after his play came another heady decision by St. Michael’s senior Antonio Gabaldon, who trapped Sandia Prep forward Jack Henderson and stole the ball from the 6-3 senior. He was intentionally fouled by Sundevils guard David Galb, but hit just one of two free throws to cut the lead to 56-53.
Thomas Wood almost got St. Michael’s within one, but traveled on the ensuing possession. Still, the die
was cast. Gabaldon made up for Wood’s missed opportunity with a steal and a three-point play off a difficult leaner in the paint with 1:38 left to give St. Michael’s a 57-56 lead.
“It just picked up the intensity,” Gabaldon said. “I went to go trap Henderson in the corner, and we hadn’t done that all game. I think it threw him off a little, not realizing the trap was going to come.”
Intensity was the only way the Horsemen could overcome a 19-for-37 shooting performance by the Sundevils (13-15). It included a 7-for-11 effort in the third quarter — which included four 3-pointers — that saw them push the lead to as much as 38-27 on Max Feit’s transition layup at 4:36 of the quarter.
St. Michael’s weathered the hot spell by simply scoring with Sandia Prep, and that fell to the job of the reserves. Lucas Gonzales stepped in for Jerome Baca after he suffered a thigh bruise and, after badly missing his first 3-pointer, knocked down a big 3 that got the Horsemen within 40-32. Conner Glatz followed with a layup after Henderson, who had 36 points, was called for an offensive foul in the backcourt to get the margin down to 40-34.
“I don’t think it was so much us in the third quarter as it was they were hitting everything,” St. Michael’s head coach David Rodriguez said. “And it wasn’t just Henderson. We did need to tighten up our defense, but our kids showed tremendous heart [on Saturday] and guts to try and make something happen.”
Sandia Prep forced overtime thanks to four free throws by Henderson that helped tie the score at 60-all. After Henderson opened the extra period with an alley-oop layup, the Horsemen scored the next eight points for the decisive blow. It began with a Jevon Montoya 3 from the top of the key and ended with a three-point play by Wood with 1:06 left for a 68-62 lead.
St. Michael’s also did its part at the free-throw line, making 12 of 17 in the fourth quarter and overtime, finishing 17-for-24 on the night.
“The game is all about concentration and maintaining a mental intensity at the line and in offensive execution,” Rodriguez said. “We challenged the kids to come as close to 100 percent as a team as we could, and that’s hard for a player at any age.”
For one night, the Horsemen had 13 minds working as one to answer that challenge.
The reward was one more game.