By BRIENNE GREEN
Sports Editor
With the exception of turnovers – of which Artesia committed 18 on the night to Goddard’s 11 – the Bulldog basketball team won every battle Friday night at Ground Zero.
They outshot the Goddard Rockets, going 45 percent from the field to the Rockets’ 39 and hitting 25 field goals to Goddard’s 18. They won the rebounding battle. They hit seven three-pointers to Goddard’s four. They went 79 percent from the free-throw line to the Rockets’ 77.
But the one thing the boys in orange couldn’t control wound up spelling the difference Friday between their first District 4-AAAA win and yet another loss: officiating.
With calls that left the healthy contingent of Big Orange fans scratching their heads and non-calls that had Artesia head coach Ike Montoya shaking his, the referees whistled the Rockets to a whopping 43 trips to the charity stripe Friday compared to just 14 for the Bulldogs. And the 33 points Goddard secured from the line propelled them to a 73-68 win over the beleaguered Bulldogs, a loss that drops the Artesia boys to 12-12 on the season and 0-3 in D4 play. … For the rest of the story, subscribe in print and on the web.
