Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — The first emotion, Soroco coach Sam McLeod said, is frustration. After a slide from 4-0 to 4-3, his team came within a hair of beating one of the league’s top teams Saturday but lost their fourth game in a row by falling at home against West Grand, 52-51, in overtime.

“One got away you could have gotten,” he said after the game.

Further reflection allowed him to consider some of the positives.

One indeed may have gotten away Saturday, but after losing the previous three by an average of 27 points, the fight the Rams displayed Saturday was a welcome sight.

“You’re happy you showed that you’re right up there with one of the better teams in the league,” McLeod said. “I thought that’s where we were. Then the last few weeks, we had some setbacks. So you have to take that away as a positive. We competed at the level we thought we could compete at.”

The Rams had the final possession at the end regulation and overtime but failed to convert. A West Grand free throw in the waning seconds of overtime proved decisive.

The squad shot better than it has recently, but it still wasn’t pretty, McLeod said. On Saturday, though, the team dealt with pressure better, and it picked better shots.

“We spread the floor pretty well and did a good job moving the ball,” McLeod said. “We still didn’t shoot well, but we knocked down a few shots and really battled back and forth with them.”

Soroco, 4-4, plays a game Monday night against Moffat County’s junior varsity squad then travels for a showdown Friday with Hayden.