CHS boys seem ready for their district battles

The second-ranked Cleveland High School boys’ basketball team won three games in a five-day span last week, and they take a 15-3 record into their District 1-5A opener at Volcano Vista’s Ring of Fire Wednesday evening. (Jan. 24)

It’ll be the fourth meeting this season between the No. 2 Storm and No. 1 Hawks, with at least one more to follow.

Here are game summaries of the trio of recent victories:

Cleveland 69, La Cueva 62: The game at La Cueva the evening of Jan. 16 couldn’t be termed a “must-win” type of game, but it was against a quality foe on its home court.

And although the Storm had won their last two meetings with the No. 7 Bears (7-5) – last year’s game at the Thunderdome and their Jan. 10 APS Metro semifinal – nobody would classify La Cueva as a pushover.,

And for most of this encounter, the Bears had the upper hand.

It basically turned out to be a 2-minute and 22-second contest, because that’s the last time the teams were tied. From that 59-all scored, the Storm ran off a 10-3 run to win it.

La Cueva held a 9- point lead late in the third quarter, and then Storm junior Remy Albrecht took over, scoring 15 of his game-high 25 in the fourth quarter, won by Cleveland, 24-11.

During one stretch in the second half rally, Albrecht hit four 3-pointers in a row, three in the decisive fourth period.

After La Cueva’s Dylan Chavez sank two free throws, tying the game for the last time at 59, the Storm went on run, with a Chavez 3 accounting for the Bears’ final points.

Daniel Steverson scored 24 points for CHS, and his eighth-grade brother Darius came off the bench to add 12, including a layup off a long pass for a 5-point lead late.

“My team kept believing in me, telling me to keep shooting,” Albrecht said. “And it started going in.”

“It” hadn’t been going in for the game’s first half; Albrecht’s 3 in the first minute gave CHS a 3-2 lead; the Storm’s last lead of the first half was 8-6, and they didn’t lead again till an Albrecht layup made it 55-54 with about five minutes left in the game.

He was shooting, but he was missing, missing his next three 3-point shots of the half – and then made four of his five attempts from beyond the arc in the second half.

“It’s just another (win),” Albrecht said. “We’re gonna keep going – this is just the beginning. … Daniel was doing great in the first half; he was playing defense; he was moving everywhere. The ball was coming to me on my 3-point shot; I was making it.”

Chavez led the Bears (7-5) with 15, Cam Dyer had 14 — but only three after halftime, and Brandon Bartlett added 12.

By the game’s end, the Storm had eleven 3s to just three for the Bears. Another stat in the Storm’s favor: turnovers, in which they had 8 to 16 for La Cueva.

Cleveland got another test two nights later, this time at home.

Cleveland 82, Sandia 64: The Storm trailed once, 3-2, then owned a 20-14 lead at the end of the first quarter, highlighted by Isaiah Sandoval coming off the bench and sinking three 3s.

Cleveland opened the second period on a 15-2 run, with a layup and two more 3s from Sandoval and opened up a comfortable 35-25 lead at halftime. By then, Sandoval had 17 of his team’s points.

The lead grew to as many as 21 points in the third quarter and 23 in the fourth.

Sandoval finished with a game-high 23 points.

“I just felt really hot, really good, coming into the game, so I was super-confident, and I was ready to execute when my moment came,” he said.

Seeing No. 4 come off the bench shows you the depth of the Storm. Sandoval notched a 3 in the first quarter of the APS Metro semifinal vs. Atrisco Heritage Academy on Jan. 12, played sparingly and didn’t score the next night in the Metro title tilt, then had another first-period 3 at La Cueva.

“As a player, you just gotta keep your head up and keep pushing,” he said. “Keep working for it. My goal, which is for my team to be successful, for me to be successful, is to get that blue trophy at the end of the season, so as a player, that’s what my main focus is on.”

And, as added incentive vs. the Matadors, he hadn’t forgotten Sandia was 3-0 vs. the Storm last season, including beating the Storm in overtime in a 5A semifinal at The Pit.

“Last season was an up and down road for us, but we stuck through, we worked out this summer, we kept our head in the game and now we’re out here doing our thing.”

“Isaiah’s our shooter,” Cole said. “He was ready to go. … All our guys are here for a reason, and they compete in different ways. When he’s locked in like that, you know he’s ready to go.”

Cleveland 92, Hobbs 78: “Hobbs is an extremely tough place to play,” Cole said before the long trip.

It sure wasn’t a tough place to score, as his team scored a season-high 92 points.

Per the official scoresheet, Steverson had 37, Padilla had 22 and Albrecht had 20.

You have to go back to the 2018-19 season to see the Storm scoring more than 90 points in a game.

Storm warnings: The Storm swept the Matadors, with the C team winning easily and the varsity not having any trouble with the Matadors. The most exciting game was the junior varsity contest, won by the Storm (9-2), 75-74, in overtime on a buzzer-beating 3 – actually, 0.9 second showed on the clock – by sophomore Dezmon Sandoval.

… Cleveland’s next game is Wednesday, Jan. 31, at Atrisco Heritage Academy.