SUNSET REGION: Panthers slow Cimarron star, speed into finals

It’s not often that a team allows a player to score 27 points and comes away satisfied.

Then again, teams don’t often face offensive weapons like Cimarron-Memorial’s Kevin Olekaibe.

Palo Verde (21-3) held Olekaibe to 27 points — seven below his regular-season average — and defeated the visiting Spartans (21-10) 75-62 in the Sunset Region boys basketball semifinals Monday.

“He’s a great scorer,” Panthers coach Jermone Riley said of Olekaibe, who had 42 points in a quarterfinal win over Western on Saturday. “We wanted to put pressure on him. We said to ourselves that we’re going to let somebody else beat us, we’re not going to let Olekaibe come in here and hit 50 and beat us.”

Palo Verde used a series of defenders on Olekaibe, and it usually ran a second and sometimes a third player at the senior guard when he crossed midcourt. Olekaibe was 7-for-22 from the field.

“He worked for every basket,” Riley said. “I was proud of our guys. We threw three or four guys at him, and he still made some tough shots at times.

Palo Verde led 27-25 at the half before using its defensive pressure on Olekaibe and others to force six key third-quarter turnovers.

That allowed the Panthers to get their transition game going, scoring 10 points off those Cimarron miscues. Palo Verde turned 23 Spartans turnovers into 24 points in the game.

“We’re a fast-break-oriented team,” Riley said. “(Cimarron) did a great job of sitting back in the zone and trying to eliminate that in the first half. The second half, we picked it up on the defensive end, which created fast-break opportunities for us.”

The Spartans got as close as two, at 58-56, on two free throws by Olekaibe with 4:09 to play, but Palo Verde answered with a 13-3 run to put the game away.

Moses Morgan had 19 points and 11 rebounds and Drew Topham had 16 points and nine rebounds for Palo Verde, which plays defending state champion Bishop Gorman (27-2) in the Sunset title game at 6:30 tonight at Palo Verde.

Leo Bermudez added 17 points and seven rebounds for Cimarron.

Bishop Gorman 74, Desert Oasis 54 — Shabazz Muhammad had 31 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Gaels over the Diamondbacks (16-10) in the other semifinal.

Gorman led 21-19 in the second quarter when Johnathan Loyd came up with steals on three consecutive possessions for the Gaels. Two of those led to Muhammad dunks, and Gorman pushed the lead 39-26 by halftime.

“He wasn’t himself offensively tonight, but defensively he brings it,” Gorman coach Grant Rice said of Loyd. “He’s a great help defender and a great on-the-ball defender. He did a great job getting us going in that second quarter.”

Loyd finished with 12 points, six rebounds, seven assists and four steals. Anson Winder added 12 points for Gorman.

Desert Oasis’ Cameron Mich’l had 20 points and seven rebounds, and Zach Bobenhausen added nine points and 10 rebounds for the Diamondbacks.