Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Soroco High School girls basketball coach David Bruner’s halftime speech was about as succinct as they come.

After watching his team struggle through the first 16 minutes of basketball at home Saturday against West Grand, Bruner went to the locker room and said one thing.

“I said, ‘Let’s go work on our shooting,’” he said.

It worked.

Soroco turned an 8-point halftime lead into an easy 53-37 win.

The Rams struggled mightily in the first half and first quarter particularly, shooting just 8 of 40 from the field.

Bruner’s speech barely had time to settle in when the Rams outscored the Mustangs, 21-8, in the third quarter to take a 43-22 lead.

“Defensively, we played pretty well,” said Bruner, whose team forced 26 West Grand turnovers. “Offensively, we played well in the third quarter. We were a little bit flat in the first half. I’m not sure why.”

Originally, though, West Grand came out and surprised Soroco. The Mustangs jumped out to a 6-0 lead and led for most of the first quarter, before the Rams’ Madison George scored at the first-quarter buzzer to give Soroco a 12-10 lead. The team never relinquished its advantage.

“We played a lot better defensively this year,” Bruner said. “We didn’t play great on offense in that first half, but defensively we played well enough to stay in the game.”

Brandi Roundtree led the Rams with 11 points, seven rebounds and four steals. Micaela Meyer chipped in 9, and George had 8.

Soroco (9-4 overall) resumes play at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at home against Vail Christian. Should Soroco win that, it would set up another huge cross-county showdown with Hayden on Friday.