ALBUQUERQUE — Standing in the concrete bowels of The Pit, head coach Lanse Carter had his eyes to the floor. He looked up at the door of Pojoaque Valley High School's makeshift locker room, which concealed a teary eyed group of Elkettes.

Said Carter: "I think they still feel if they had one more quarter they could come back in this game."

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Pojoaque Valley would need at least an extra few minutes to erase a nightmare first quarter, one that seemed to stun the two-time defending state champions and bury them under a blizzard of turnovers and Lovington layups.

The third-seeded Elkettes closed the gap, but No. 6 Lovington rolled to a 61-50 victory in Tuesday's quarterfinal of the Class AAA Girls State Basketball Tournament.

Pojoaque Valley finished the season 19-11.

"We didn't really come out strong in the beginning like we normally do," said Marissa Romero, one of three Pojoaque Valley seniors.

No, and even though Lovington (25-5) was equally sloppy in the first quarter the Lady Wildcats were able to knock down shots and convert layups.

The opening eight minutes ended with the score 23-5 in favor of Lovington.

"We make those seven or eight layups in that first half and that ballgame's a different story with a different mentality on our part," Carter said. "We miss those layups and things and now our mentality's more ... "

Carter pauses. He makes a face resembling a cat about to meet the bumper of a speeding Buick.

"Shocked."

The lasting image of this game was the back of Lovington's Mystica Perez as she's swooping in for a layup. Perez scored a career-high 35 points. She made three of four 3-pointers, but most of the rest of her field goals were either fastbreak layups or driving scoop shots.

When it wasn't Perez, it was her teammate since the second grade, Kenzie Black.

The coach's daughter scored 20 points and thrice hit from long range.

"Mystica's good and Kenzie's good," said Lovington head coach Rick Black. " But they're really good together. ... Everybody flows with them that way."

For Romero, it was simply a matter of Pojoaque Valley not getting stops.

"Personally, I think it was our defense," she said. "They got a lot of fastbreaks and fast runs on us. We weren't playing defense."

That wasn't always the case. The Elkettes did force 27 turnovers. The problem was that if Lovington didn't turn the ball over, the Lady Wildcats usually found open lanes to the basket or uncontested 3s.

Elkettes senior Dionna Montoya, who scored a team-high
17 points, said the defense wasn't packed close enough to the basket and when Lovington penetrated, the help didn't close the lanes quickly.

Still, despite these problems, the Elkettes cut the Lady Wildcats lead to 10 points, 49-39, with 6:40 to play.

But Lovington called a
timeout and responded with an 8-0 run.

Montoya said it stopped all Pojoaque Valley momentum. And the Elkettes continued to struggle with Lovington's physical style.

"They're known for pushing, grabbing, being a physical team," Carter said. "I wouldn't necessarily agree with some of the things that they do, but you have to give them credit. They played hard and made shots."

His thoughts quickly went back to his own team.

"My heart goes out to my seniors right now," Carter said. "There's not a lot of kids that can say they've done what they've done."