Rehoboth wins home tourney: Defending 2A champs look to find identity

REHOBOTH, N.M.

The Rehoboth Christian boys’ basketball team used a 13-6 run in the third quarter to post a 39-27 win over Mancos, Colorado, in the championship game of the Rehoboth tournament on Saturday.

The Lynx hit three treys to jumpstart their offense while holding Mancos to 2-of-9 shooing in that pivotal quarter.

“I don’t know what they’re averaging but we held them to 27 points,” Rehoboth coach Kevin Zwiers said. “We did a good job defensively because they have some good players but credit our guys for holding them.”

The Lynx led 21-17 at the break as they got a buzzer beater from senior wing Isaac Zwiers.

That four-point advantage grew to 29-20 after senior Talon West and junior Reece Black Moon nailed a pair of baseline treys on opposite corners with just over five minutes left.

The visiting Bluejays got an old-fashion three-point play from Edgar Hernandez to get within six but that was as close as they would get.

Rehoboth capped the quarter with a trey from senior Mato Chapman and a transition basket from West for a 34-25 cushion.

“We put a lot of pressure on them,” Chapman said of their second half play as the Lynx outscored Mancos 18-10.

“We just did our thing and they didn’t know what kind of pressure we could (apply),” he said.

“We have to give a lot of credit to our coaching staff because we made some adjustments at halftime,” West added. “We locked them down with our defense. We made them shoot from the outside.”

Both players led Rehoboth with 10 points each while Black Moon added nine.

In addition to playing stellar defense, the Rehoboth coach said his team did an exceptional job on the boards as they outrebounded the Bluejays 25 to 21.

“They had some size and they probably had more strength than us but we kept them off the board,” Zwiers said. “I think that was key.”

With the Bluejays sticking to its zone defense for much of the contest, the Lynx had to make a few extra passes to get the looks they wanted.

“We got a lot of good shooters,” Zwiers said. “There is no doubt about that. It’s just that we had to find the right shot and that’s what we talked about. We want to make sure that we’re taking shots that go in, the high percentage shots.”

With the 12-point win Rehoboth improved to 3-0 overall as they have a stacked schedule this week.

The 2A Lynx travel to play Shiprock, a 4A school, today. Rehoboth will then host Window Rock on Saturday.

“We got a tough schedule,” Zwiers said. “We’re going to be battled-tested by the time we get to district. That’s why we like playing games like this early in the season.

“It pushes us to where we have to play at a high level,” he added.

West said the challenging schedule bodes well for the team as the Lynx are looking to find its identity after winning the 2A state title this past May.

“We’re looking forward to playing them,” he said. “We’re excited and even though this is a brand new team we’re starting to mesh with some of the new guys on the team.”

Of the 12 players that suited up on Saturday, five are seniors including two – West and Chapman – that played a lot of minutes last year.

“We really like our group of guys,” the Rehoboth coach said. “We got a couple of guys that are showing us some stuff off the bench, so we’re going to have a little bit of depth.

“If we can defend at a high level,” he added, “and if we can take care of the basketball and knock down shots we’re going to be a tough team.”

As for winning the state title last season, Zwiers said he referenced that team only once on the first day of practice.

“Everybody wants to talk about defending the state title but that was last year’s team,” he said. “This is a different team and we’ve talked about that at the very beginning. This team has to find an identity.

“It’s what we’re doing right now,” he said. “We need to get better every time we go to practice and every time we step onto the court.”

Zwiers said it’s not going to happen overnight.

“It happens over the course of the season, so we have a lot of work to do,” he said.

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