Rio Rancho girls continue win streak in Santa Fe

The Rio Rancho High School girls’ basketball team left Santa Fe with another victory and remains unbeaten in the early season. The final: Rio Rancho 40, Santa Fe 14.

“I like our team. We are very young; they’re coachable, they’ve got good energy, they’re learning. For the most part, we are going to keep this team intact for years … I think the community of Rio Rancho is going to see some real good girls’ basketball for years to come,” Rams head coach Lori Mabrey said.

This is the second game in which the Rams held their opponent under 20 points; St. Michael’s scored 17 against the Rams.

After a tight first quarter, the Rams pulled away and never looked back.

“Early on, we were hugged up on our man (defense). We didn’t have anybody in the paint and in driving lines. We kind of corrected that as the game went on, so I thought we got a lot better with our half-court defense,” Mabrey said.

The Santa Fe Demons were scoreless in the second quarter, and Rio Rancho went on a 16-0 run.

Santa Fe finally ended the scoreless streak in the middle of the third quarter with a 3-pointer from sophomore Avah Baca, but the Rams were just too much.

Controlling the paint all night for the Rams was freshman Jemmah Estrada, who led the team in rebounds and points.

“This feels amazing. I think we really proved ourselves, and we did what we wanted to do,” Estrada said.

Estrada scored 14 points and racked up nine rebounds. She was one rebound shy of a double-double, and if she scored another point, she would have outscored the entire Santa Fe team.

Rio Rancho improved to 6-0 on the promising year and handed Santa Fe its third loss.

“We worked very, very hard in the off season, and I’m really proud of our kids. We have some steeper competition coming down here pretty soon in our schedule, but the fact that we started 6-0 is something that I am thrilled about,” Mabrey said.