Makenna on a mission: Rams celebrate Senior Night by caging Jaguars

RIO RANCHO – It was Senior Night in the RAC on Feb. 14, and 12th-grader Makenna Lee was on a mission.

Oh, beating the fourth-place Atrisco Heritage Jaguars (8-15, 2-4 in 1-5A) wasn’t the mission, just getting into the scorebook was, says coach Lori Mabrey.

“She didn’t score at all in the last game, which was at Cleveland,” Mabrey said, “and she was really upset. She had told me, and I didn’t realize it, that was the first game she had never scored any points in.

“So, she came out with a vengeance tonight.”

That’s a nice way of putting it, coach.

After Alyssa Vigil scored the game’s first basket, Lee scored the next 14 points for the No. 10 Rams (16-7, 4-1), who wound up with 22 points from Lee in a 56-14 rout of the Jaguars.

By halftime, Lee had 18 points; playing sparingly, in light of the lopsided contest, she scored her final four points in the third period, finishing with nine field goals and a 4 for 4 outing at the charity stripe.

The Rams led by 17 at the end of the first and second quarters, 20-3 and 29-12. AHA managed only three points the rest of the way, with just four field goals in the entire game – after Lee had her first four before the game was six minutes old.

“She had a really good game,” Mabrey concluded.

The other four Rams starters accounted for 23 points, so that quarter, as well as Lee, easily outscored the Jaguars, whose two wins have come against Cibola – where Mabrey once coached and where Lee played before transferring to RRHS.

The District 1-5A race comes down to the Friday, Feb. 23, Cleveland at Rio Rancho contest, which should decide second place. Volcano Vista has clinched first place; AHA and Cibola have dibs on fourth place and last place, respectively.

“That’s an important game and we’re at our house and we have to defend our house,” Mabrey said. “I know coach (Susan) Kubala is going to have them more than ready for us. I think they key for us is we have to be able to out-work them at the defensive end of the floor.”

The Rams are 2-0 vs. the Storm thus far, beating Cleveland 54-40 in the championship game of the Bobby Rodriguez tournament in Santa Fe on Dec. 2 and 36-32 in their first district meeting at Cleveland on Feb. 7.

Dribbles: The Storm are home Wednesday, Feb. 21, to face Cibola; the Rams are at Volcano Vista that evening.

… The District 1-5A girls’ tournament tips off Monday, Feb. 19, with fifth-place Cibola at fourth-place AHA. That game’s winner visits the third-place finisher – Cleveland or Rio Rancho – Tuesday at 7. The semifinal game is Wednesday at 7; the 1-5A championship game is at VVHS’s Ring of Fire on Friday, also at 7.