by Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
SPRINGER/RATON — The 86th annual Cowbell Tourney is officially in the books, bringing exciting basketball to northeastern New Mexico this last week, and crowning new champions, the Roy/Mosquero girls and the Des Moines boys.
First round and consolation round action was held beginning Tuesday, Dec. 5 at Springer’s Sim Brown Gym. Play on the winners side of the bracket moved to Raton on Friday, Dec. 8, where one game, the Raton vs Trinidad girls game, was canceled because of weather Saturday morning.
In the first round of tourney play, there were some runaways, along with some very close games like the Clayton vs Roy/Mosquero game on Tuesday where both teams were equally sized and worked the ball equally, until the Blue finally bested Clayton 57-45.
Wednesday night was a rematch of last year’s boys championship game with a different outcome, as Raton battled with Maxwell down to the finish. This year, Raton came out on top in the last minute of the game 47-44, clearing the way for Raton to head back to the Jungle for a shot at the championship.
In Raton, there was a wider spread in the girls games with Roy moving on toward the championship with a 59-26 win over Cimarron, and Springer besting Clayton 61-32.
On Saturday, the Cimarron vs Clayton third place game for girls stayed close until Clayton started hitting and went on to pull ahead of Cimarron for the 46-33 win.
In the boys game, Raton and Roy battled it out with Raton pulling it out by 10 later in the game to win 50-40.
The championship games were simply championship games with both teams being well matched. On the girls side of the bracket, it was a rematch of last year’s championship, but Roy/Mosquero turned the tables to win 48-37. While the Lady Blue spread out some of their scoring, Sylvie Baca was the point leader with 17 despite getting into foul trouble early. For Springer, Fatima Levario (11) and Abigail Eppler led the scoring (10) followed by Olivia Burton with 9.
In the boys championship game Des Moines had to battle 6″9″ senior Demetrius Jackson who made his presence felt throughout the tourney with blocks, rebounds and a good outside shooting touch. The Demons’ Caleb Sumpter, while only 6’2″, managed to find a way around Jackson underneath and posted 24 points while Jackson dropped in 19 in the first half and could only manage six in the third quarter with Des Moines shutting him down in the fourth. Des Moines pulled out the win 63-48.
On the consolation side of the bracket on Thursday, both boys games were runaways setting up an exciting game with Clayton and Maxwell on Saturday for the consolation championship.
Maxwell was down for a period of time then came back to tie and pull ahead while Clayton fell behind and battled back as well. It was Maxwell who pulled ahead in the fourth for the 63-59 win.
The only close consolation game on the girl’s bracket was the Trinidad vs Des Moines game where Des Moines bested Trinidad 43-34.
After talking to coaches it was noted a couple of the teams are very young and inexperienced and populated with freshman and 8th graders.
The Lady Demons went on to take the consolation championship title, winning 52-13 over Maxwell.
For many teams the Cowbell represented the first games of the season, while Raton and Springer had played in the TSC tourney, which gave them a three game advantage to work out some of the kinks.
