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Cleveland High boys’ hoops season ends in first round
Sandia’s Zaire Crayton-Johnson (3) blocked this first-quarter shot by Cleveland’s Daniel Steverson.
There’s a first time for everything, and Sandia High School’s 69-61 first-round victory over No. 3 Cleveland was the first time in CHS history that the Storm lost a first-round home game.
Sandia head coach Danny Brown said he didn’t think his team was a 14 seed, and his Matadors certainly didn’t play like one in the Thunderdome, where they upset the Storm, who had beaten the Matadors there 82-64 back in January.
The Matadors (16-12), advancing to a quarterfinal meeting Wednesday in The Pit, led for most of the first half, and had a 27-22 lead at intermission. The Storm (20-8) caught them at 27-all, only to see the Matadors connecting on 3-pointers in the third quarter – and two Matadors fouled on attempted 3s each made their three foul shots.
The Matadors, who beat the Storm three times last season, including in overtime in the quarterfinals, built their lead to as many as 11 points in the third period, when leading leading scorers Zaire Crayton Johnson had 8 of his 21 and Thomas Adams had 10 of his game-high 33.
The lead was 48-39 heading into the fourth quarter, when the Matadors added three more treys to their game total dozen. A late rush by Cleveland, an 8-2 run with all 8 points scored at the foul line, made it a 7-point game, with less than a minute to play.
Daniel Steverson led the Storm with 14 points and Noah Padilla added 13. But the Storm managed five 3s in the game – and it’s hard to win trading 2s for 3s.
“We did a pretty good job on Daniel,” Brown said. “But I’m going to give credit to our kids because they guarded their butts off.
“This game was about shooting 3s, about hitting layups and getting to the free throw line. We did a good job on the glass,” he said. “We just beat a really good team.
“I don’t know if we’re a 14 seed, but that’s where they put us, based on the criteria, but this is a special group. I told people we were going to have to play well, but I thought this was a really good matchup for us,” Brown concluded. “We’re a team that people didn’t want to play.”
