PECOS -- It's one thing to look gaudy in December and January.

The Peñasco Lady Panthers know the best time to look your best -- February.

Unfortunately, they didn't look the part of District 2AA's leaders on Monday night in Pecos' Louis G. Sanchez Memorial Gymnasium. But substance trumped style, and Peñasco had plenty of former.

Thanks to 11 points from junior point guard Melanie Gonzales, the Lady Panthers got over a sluggish first half and cruised to a 45-28 win over Pecos in a battle of Lady Panthers.

At 15-8 overall and 6-0 in 2AA, Peñasco maintains its one-game lead over Mora, which rocked Monte del Sol 65-20 in Santa Fe. The Rangerettes are 23-2, which is the best record in Class AA, but they have one glaring blemish -- a 53-48 loss to Peñasco on Feb. 3.

And that one game means a lot with just five days left in the regular season.

"We talk about this a lot -- that it's not how you start, it's how you finish," Peñasco head coach David Sanchez said. "Our main focus is to finish well and hopefully win the district, because that's what's going to place you in the state tournament."

That mantra helped the Lady Panthers weather a 9-8 start that paled in the light of Mora's 15-0 start and even Pecos' 11-5 mark when district play began. But Peñasco was a team looking for its identity and spent two months searching for it.

Two pieces were already in place -- forward Marcella Sanchez and post Abigail Soto. The pair was key to last year's Class AA semifinal team that went 25-5, but the rest of the players tried to find their roles.

Gonzales was among them. She played forward for the past three seasons but moved to point guard. The last time she filled that spot, she was still in middle school, but she was eager to try.

"It's been a long time," Gonzales said. "I was used to playing forward, but then, I kinda play just about every position out there."

Her role against Pecos (14-11, 3-4) was to spark the transition game that got the Lady Panthers rolling in the second half. She scored back-to-back breakaways that highlighted a 7-0 run that turned a 17-10 lead into a 24-10 margin with 5 minutes, 51 seconds left in the third quarter.

It was needed after Peñasco held only a 17-8 lead despite holding Pecos scoreless for the first 10:38 of the game. The lead was only 12-0 at that point because Pecos double-teamed Soto and Sanchez in the post.

"That's why we have five players," Sanchez said. "Two played bad, but Melanie, Veronica [Dominguez] and Shannon [Medina] played well enough to hold off the big girls having a bad day. I think that is going to be important during tourney time."

Both of Gonzales' baskets came off a Pecos turnover, of which there were 28 on the night, as an overeager group played over its collective heads.

"What happened was we cut it down to seven, and the girls got real excited and wanted to push the pressure more," Pecos head coach Leroy Barela said. "That took us out of our game and we took some bad shots."

Gonzales started another 7-0 spurt later in the third that pushed the lead to 33-16 and dashed whatever spark was in Pecos.

Barela knows his team has hit a wall since district play started, going 3-6 since reaching its zenith. Scoring has been the crux of the problem, having scored fewer than 40 points over the past four games.

The schedule hasn't helped, as Pecos has played nine games in the last 20 days. What Barela needs is a few days of practice to correct mistakes and get his team out of its rut.

"We've got a bunch of freshmen who need time in the gym so you can clean some things up," Barela said. "Then you got seniors who are logging a bunch of minutes and there's no rest period for them. You're trying to find that happy medium, and it's my job to try and find it."

On the other hand, Peñasco has found itself. Now, it's about making that championship presentation when it matters the most.

MORA 65, MONTE DEL SOL 20

Rangerettes (23-2, 6-1) senior forward Andrea Romero joined the 1,500-point club.

She scored 10 points against the Lady Dragons (12-13, 0-6) in a District 2AA game in the Genoveva Chavez Community Center to get to 1,501 in her career. And that included an abbreviated freshman season

"She started playing the latter part of the year as a freshman," Mora head coach Mark Cassidy said. "She she's done well."

Chantel Valencia had 21 points to lead the Rangerettes, who jumped out to a 16-2 lead after a quarter and 44-8 at the half. Destiny Pacheco added 14.

Monte del Sol head coach Ralph Casaus said his team needs to learn how to handle the pressure opponents use against it.

"We just can't handle the pressure," Casaus said. "I think once we do that I think we're going to turn things around."

Alysia Lujan had 12 to pace Monte del Sol.

Contact James Barron at 986-3045 or jbarron@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at thereadbarron.com.