PECOS -- The truest barometer of a flustered team is a 10-second violation.

On one particular second-quarter possession, the Lady Panthers didn't have the presence of mind to advance the ball past the timeline, and as such, time quickly ran out on them.

That's what the speed of the Rangerettes will do to a team.

Class AA's second-ranked team put together a concentrated five-minute effort to vanquish Pecos 60-35 in a District 2AA on Monday night in Louis G. Sanchez Memorial Gymnasium.

"We went through that little spurt in the first quarter where we didn't come out the way we needed to," said Mark Cassidy, Rangerettes head coach. "We weren't totally focused. And then we got things going in the second quarter. And we're like that. We kinda hang around, hang around, and then, boom."

"Boom" was Andrea Romero getting into gear, scoring 11 of her 34 points in the second quarter. The senior had 19 by halftime.

Romero scored the Rangerettes' first seven points of the second, and her triple with just more than seven minutes left gave Mora a 15-11 lead.

The Lady Panthers pulled even at 15-all moments later, but Mora poured it on, closing the half on a 16-0 run for 31-15 at the break.

Romero, Angel Valencia and Chantel Rivera accounted for all the Rangerettes' points during that spurt, but Romero singlehandedly put the lance in Pecos' side.

She hit a pair of free throws that extended the lead to eight and closed the half by taking a bounce pass and finishing with a pretty lay-in.

"It's easier said than done trying to stop [Romero]," said Leroy Barela, Pecos head coach. "That girl is phenomenal. She's exactly what we want from our girls when they're seniors."

Romero was simply all over the court, and unaccounted for by Pecos.

With 1:48 left in the third quarter, she swiped the ball from Pecos' Mariah Maestas, who had just rebounded a Rangerettes miss, and kissed it off the glass for 40-23.

Cassidy was astounded when told of Romero's point total, saying it was a workmanlike.

"Are you serious?" he said. "It's funny. If she's rolling, everybody else seems to follow suit. She's our leader. She's our captain. She's good."

Romero wasn't too worried about what the final stat sheet read like.

"I guess I was just on," she said. "I didn't think I was going to score that [much]."

Still, scoring wasn't the issue for Cassidy. It was the other stuff.

Every possession counted, and Cassidy spent little time relaxing on the bench as he paced the sidelines nervously.

With the clock winding down in the third quarter, Rivera badly air-balled a wide-open 3, and Cassidy responded by pounding on the bleachers. He sported a Band-Aid on the top of his right hand afterward.

"She's one of my best shooters," Cassidy deadpanned. "That was supposed to be, as I put it, the first nail in the coffin."

By that point, the Rangerettes were up by 19 points heading into the fourth. That wasn't enough for Cassidy, who lamented his team's poor shot-selection and not playing with poise.

"We need to play smarter," Cassidy said. "We need to know when to pull the ball out. And my girls are programmed to attack, attack, attack, and sometimes it's hard to be able to play a half-court game when we have to."

Kee Anna Trujillo was the only Lady Panther in double figures with 14 points.

Contact Isaac Avilucea at iavilucea@sfnewmexican.com or 986-3032.