Steamboat Pilot & Today

Edwards — Everything was cool Saturday when Soroco and Vail Christian basketball got together.

“Yeah, that was cool,” Sor­oco’s Brandi Roundtree said about her two 3s in the third quarter, which all but ended the girls’ game with the Rams coming away with a 62-33 victory Saturday.

“No, that wasn’t cool at all, Brandi,” Vail Christian girls coach Doug Bruce interrupted in a friendly way. “We worked really hard to get that game back within 10 points.”

On Friday night after the Rams fell to Rangely, Soroco’s Round­­tree went back into the auxiliary gym and worked on her shot.

“My shot was just off. I wasn’t contributing to the team as much,” she said. “So I just wanted to work on my shot for this game.”

That seemed to work, as Round­­tree sank the aforementioned 3s to seal her team’s win Saturday. A lot of other things worked well for the Rams (4-2).

Soroco’s press upset Vail Christian’s tempo, making the Saints play faster than they wanted, producing turnovers and otherwise fruitless offensive possessions. Meanwhile, the Rams just zipped the ball through Vail Christian’s zone to their posts, including junior Madison George who had a game-high 17 points.

“It’s something we’ve been working on,” Rams coach David Bruner said. “We also took care of the ball tonight, which was something we’ve been working on. They made sharp, crisp passes, and we were able to make shots when we got it underneath.”

Soroco led 15-10 at the end of the first, and 27-16 at the half and kept going.

“We let their press speed us up and had a lot of turnovers early, which contributed to them getting away from us early,” Bruce said. “At halftime, we told our girls, ‘We haven’t taken the shots we want to take. Instead we’ve given them five uncontested layups on the other end.’”

Vail Christian (5-3) got it to 32-22 with 1:44 left in third quarter before Roundtree, who finished with 13 points, sank her two 3s.

Although they are league opponents, Saturday’s games were nonconference contests between the two schools. The official league games are Feb. 8 in Oak Creek.

In the meantime, the Saints head to Rangely Thursday for a set of games, while the Rams are at Plateau Valley on Friday, all of which will undoubtedly be cool.