Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — A brutal first half cost the Steamboat Springs High School boys basketball team on the last day of the Flaming Gorge Classic 2010 invitational basketball tournament in Green River, Wyo.

Steamboat managed only 8 first-half points in falling, 58-34, to Evanston, Wyo., Saturday.

But it wasn’t as though Ste­­amboat didn’t get good looks. The Sailors, now 5-4, had shots around the basket but just failed to convert.

Steamboat shot 2 of 18 in the first half, with its only makes coming from behind the arc.

“We just could not hit a shot in the first half, and that killed us the rest of the game,” Steamboat coach Luke DeWolfe said.

The Sailors started to find their range in the third quarter, scoring 19 points in the frame, but the slow start was too much to overcome.

Steamboat cut the lead to 10 in the third quarter but didn’t get any closer.

Isiah Mendoza-Forsyth led the Sailors with 13 points, and Justin Anderson added 12.

“We’re ahead of where we’ve been in the past,” DeWolfe said. “The teams we’ve lost to have been good teams, and the teams we’ve beat, we should have beat. Overall, we have to use these next two weeks to reinvent parts of our games that are weak.”

Sailors girls basketball ends final day with 74-36 loss

The Steamboat Springs High School girls basketball team wrapped up the Flaming Gorge Classic 2010 invitational basketball tournament by running into a buzz saw Saturday.

Steamboat never could overcome a slow first quarter against Wyoming’s No. 2-ranked girls team, eventually falling, 74-36, to Sheridan.

“They’re really good,” Sailors coach John Ameen said. “After the first quarter, we played them pretty well. There were spots obviously throughout the game where they took it to us. But they jump on us in the first quarter pretty hard, and there was no turning back from there.”

Steamboat trailed 26-4 after one quarter and never could recover.

Hannah Moore led Steam­­boat with 14 points, and Eryn Rinck added 8.

Ameen said he was concerned about the slow starts he saw at the tournament, but he didn’t leave Wyoming upset.

With Steamboat completing its pre-league schedule at 4-5, Ameen said there are just minor adjustments to be made before Steamboat opens up again at 6 p.m. Jan. 7 at Glenwood Springs.

“We don’t have to go back to the drawing board for anything,” he said. “We have to improve on some defensive fundamental stuff, and offensively, it’s just some small fundamental stuff.”