She wanted
to see how her Gators would fare.
And now,
after the first game is over? Maybe not so much. Particularly after the way
Xavier played in Monday night’s (Nov. 20) season opener against Tucson Pueblo
at Gilbert Mesquite.
Xavier
jumped to an 11-0 lead in the first quarter, but that quickly evaporated.
Simply put, the Gators were outplayed in every phase of the game and Pueblo, a
4A Conference quarterfinalist a year ago, earned a 72-65 victory.
The road
doesn’t get any easier on Tuesday (Nov. 21). Xavier will face Mesquite at 5:30
p.m. Mesquite is the defending 5A champion and routed Tucson Flowing Wells
117-12 in its tourney opener.
Asked what
about the performance frustrated her the most, Gillom said, “All of it. Pueblo
played smarter, outrebounded us, they outran us . . . after all of the running
we’ve been doing (in practice) . . .
“Our defense
is more mature than that. Overall, we have to learn to play consistently for
all four quarters. We definitely have a lot to work on.’’
Pueblo also
was quicker and seemed more athletic. The Warriors stepped into the passing
lanes to take the ball away. They did pretty much whatever they wanted.
When Xavier
had the ball, its players did a lot of standing around. When the ballhandler
would come across the half-court line and get some defensive pressure from
Pueblo, there often would be no one to throw to because teammates were not
coming to get the ball.
Four of the
Gators’ five starters scored in double figures, but very few seemed to have
much of an impact.
Senior
forward Montana Oltrogge scored 18 points, followed by junior wing Addison
Putnam (13, including three 3-pointers), senior forward Katie Hassett and
junior point guard Leilani McIntosh (10 each).
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