Bobcat boys triumphant at tourney

The Hot Springs County High School boys basketball team continued to prove their fight during a long weekend of play against tough opponents in the ShoOpolis tournament, a shared tournament between Thermopolis and Shoshoni. 

First up for the Bobcats were the Upton Bobcats on Friday, a home game played in Shoshone. The game was a shootout that went down to the final buzzer with the hometown Bobcats falling 64-61. Upton, which has won each of their first six games, have out scored their opponents by nearly 100 points this season. 

"We had a really good first half and were up by 8 at halftime.  Upton came out and hit two 3's to start the second half and unfortunately that set the tone for the second half," said Gerber.

Although the Bobcats were unable to hold their opponent to under 40 points like coach Kevin Gerber asked of his team this year, the Bobcats offense turned up the heat and scored more points than in any other game up to that point. 

"Our boys really fought back and played hard the entire game. We had huge minutes from our bench that came from Mike Meier, Cameron Igou, and Hudson Roling.  This was Cornwell and Meier's first game this season and they did really well."

Tyler Cornwell put up 17 points, while Eric Herold scored 14 and shot 100 percent from the field. Keegan Robbins scored 12 points and had 9 rebounds, while Noah Schwalbe had 8 points and 7 rebounds.

After the Upton loss, the Bobcats stormed back and beat the Cokeville Panthers 56-39 at home on Saturday morning. The Cokeville game was a trial-by-fire for the Bobcats defense after the Upton game, and the unfaltering Bobcats not only won the game by a large margin, but managed to keep the Panthers to under 40 points, which no other team managed to do this season.

"Defense," said Geber, "That is the best word to describe this game for our boys. They did a great job playing really tough defense. We caused 19 turnovers in the first half."  

After extinguishing the Cokeville offense, the Bobcats had another tremendous shooting performance, with four players scoring in the double digits. Schwalbe, who scored 8 points in the Upton game Friday, put up 15 on Saturday morning. Cornell scored 14, while Jensen had 11 and Robbins scored 10. Jensen was the leading rebounder with 7, while Cornwell had 6, Schwalbe had 5 and Herold had 4. Cornwell and Hudson Roling each had 4 assists.

"The boys did an amazing job of keeping their composure when Cokeville would try to go on a run.  As you can tell, our scoring was really even across the board and that is very encouraging because if we ever have someone with an off day, we know the team can handle it," said Gerber of his team's performance.

During the Bobcats final game of the weekend against Little Snake River, the offense was again firing on all cylinders. Holding the Rattlers to a mere 5 points in the first quarter, the Bobcats charged ahead and never looked back. Gerber said that this game was his team's "best total team effort."

The Saturday afternoon game seemed to show a newfound harmony between both the offensive and defensive sides of the Bobcats' game, as the team managed a whopping 48 total rebounds. The starting five for the Bobcats gave the team a big enough lead that younger players on the team saw extensive playing time during the second half.

"Every one of our varsity players were able to get some invaluable minutes on the court.  All but two of those players were able to score and that came off a season leading 20 assists as a team off of 27 made baskets," Gerber said. "That proves that our team is playing together as a team and not one person is just out trying to get stats.  I was very proud of our team effort!" 

Schwalbe had his best game of the weekend with 16 points and 4 rebounds, while Jensen had 15 points and 4 rebounds. Robbins scored 10 points and had 6 rebounds, and Tyler Cornwell had 8 points and 7 rebounds. Cameron Igou was solid under the basket with 7 rebounds.

The Bobcats look to sharpen their claws even more during their two-week break for the holidays. The Bobcats will travel to Lovell on Jan. 8 and 9 in hopes of continuing their early season success.

"The best is still to come and if we continue to get better each and every game, we will be peaking at the time we need to and prove that the Bobcats are a great basketball team. Our motto this year is "Stay hungry, stay humble and rise up" and we hope to keep that in mind each and every time we step on the court," Gerber concluded.