Texico junior Jaylyn Cooper shoots over Clayton’s Adrienne Trujillo, left, and Alexa Montoya in the first quarter of Friday night’s District 4-2A girls tournament championship game at Texico. The Lady Wolverines won 59-40.

Texico sophomore Mel Lucero digs in to apply defensive pressure on Clayton senior Chelsea Kear in the first quarter of Friday night’s District 4-2A girls tournament championship game at Texico.

TEXICO — As far as Texico girls coach Keith Durham knew, it was just another game for junior guard Jordyn Cooper.

In truth, she had career highs of six 3-pointers and 26 points Friday night as top-ranked Texico cruised past No. 7 Clayton 59-40 in the District 4-2A girls tournament championship.

“After watching the game, I had no idea,” Durham said. “We moved the ball around tonight, and she happened to have the shots.”

Defending Class 2A champion Texico (24-2), seeking its fourth state title in five years, is a virtual lock to get the No. 1 seed on Sunday and host the No. 16 seed in a first-round game on Friday.

“I’m very excited,” Cooper said about trying to defend the state title. The Lady Wolverines also won 2A crowns in 2007 and 2008.

“We have a target on our back, like every other year,” she said. “But it doesn’t bother us, because at the end of the day it’s us we have to worry about.”

Meeting for the fourth time this season, including once in the EPAC tournament, the Lady Wolverines held Clayton (18-10) without a field goal for the first 6 1/2 minutes in building a 12-1 lead.

Cooper had two 3-pointers and eight points each in the first, third and fourth quarters.

“I think the whole team did a better job of running the floor,” she said. “We got a lot of transition points tonight.”

Texico, winning its 13th in a row, held the Lady Jackets scoreless for the first 5 1/2 minutes of the second quarter and cruised into halftime with a 25-13 lead.

“We got to do some different stuff because they played us man-to-man,” Durham said. “Honestly, I was pleased about that because not a whole lot of people play us man-to-man.”

The Lady Wolverines also held down Clayton’s top two players, senior guard Chelsea Kear and senior forward Norma Vital. Kear finished with 18 points, but had none in the first half and 14 in the final 6 1/2 minutes, while Vital scored six points.

“They’re just hard to play against because they’re so tall and long,” Clayton coach Kirk Mann said. “They make you struggle to execute anything.

“I have to take my hat off to them, but I was proud of our girls’ effort. Hopefully, we’ll have a shot to see them again (in the state tournament).”

Junior forward Adrienne Trujillo, who kept the game marginally close for a while with two late 3-pointers in the first quarter, finished with 10 points for Clayton.

Sophomore post Shaylee Anderson added 13 points for Texico while Jaylyn Cooper, Jordyn’s twin, had nine points and a team-high five assists.