Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — At this point in the season in the boys Class 4A Western Slope basketball league, just about every game is an elimination game. With the year-end state tournament narrowing the field of competitors to 32 teams, there may be only one or two slots for Western Slope League schools.

Friday’s Steamboat-Battle Moun­tain game, usually a lopsided contest in favor of the Sailors, began the final push for the playoffs.

Fortunately for Steamboat, it did enough late to hold on for a 48-38 win, keeping the Sailors in the hunt for a league title as well as the playoffs.

“We need to win at this point to have a shot at a league title and a shot at a playoff position,” Steamboat coach Luke DeWolfe said. “Every game we have to have that mentality. Hopefully we can keep it going.”

It looked as if Steamboat would run away with the game early.

The Sailors jumped out to a 22-12 lead with 3 minutes, 36 seconds left in the first half before the Huskies started to show some mettle.

Battle Mountain finished the half on a 7-0 run to cut the Steam­­boat lead to 22-19.

The game went back and forth for the next quarter and a half, with Battle Mountain coming as close as 42-38 with 2:25 left in the game.

But the Sailors (11-7 overall, 6-2 in the Western Slope League) got a pair of buckets from Isiah Mendoza-Forsyth and Charles Wood to put the game away.

“We were within four points with less than two minutes to go,” Battle Mountain coach Tommy Padilla said. “That’s where we wanted to be; that was our game plan. Then again it was a few defensive lapses and turnovers at the wrong time.”

Wood led the Sailors with 15 points, while Mendoza-For­syth chipped in 12. Randall Nel­­son had 10 points and 14 rebounds.

Jimmy O’Rouke and Jake Engles paced the Huskies (10-8, 4-4) with nine points apiece.

Steamboat plays at 3:30 p.m. today at Eagle Valley.

Game statistics

Steamboat 48, Battle Mountain 38

■ Score by quarter

Battle Mountain 09-10-09-10 — 38

Steamboat 11-11-11-15 — 48

■ Scoring summary

Battle Mountain: Jimmy O’Rouke 3 3-3 11, Jonathan Vargas 1 0-0 3, Joe

Lybarger 1 1-2 3, Jake Engle 4 0-0 9, Cody Hervert 2 3-7 7, Chris Duran 1

0-0 3, Joe Webb 1 0-0 2, Matt Christensen 0 0-0 0, Alex Banegas 1 0-0 2.

Totals 14 7-12 38.

Steamboat: Isiah Mendoza-Forsyth 5 2-4 12, Randall Nelson 4 1-4 10, Justin

Anderson 2 0-0 6, Charles Wood 5 4-8 15, Eric Trousil 0 0-0 0, Kit Croop 2

0-0 4, Ryan Hall 0 0-0 0, Jake Miller 0 1-2 1, Robby Davis 0 0-0 0, Ben

Custer 0 0-0 0, Justin Ditter 0 0-0 0, Sam Scheer 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 8-18

48.

3-pointers: Battle Mountain (3) — Vargas, Engle, Duran. Steamboat (4) —

Anderson 2, Wood, Nelson.