Bobcats aim to improve physical conditioning

The Bobcat boys basketball team was on the road over the weekend, splitting their wins and losses between Torrington, Burns and Wheatland, 1-2.

Against the Torrington Trailblazers, the Bobcats played really well at times and not so well at other times according to coach Shane Corpening.

The Trailblazers built up a little bit of a lead early, but by the end of the first quarter the Cats were up 19-12.

In the second quarter the boys got a little too comfortable with their lead and became way less aggressive, both offensively and defensively, sending them to the locker room at half-time with just a single point lead.

The struggle continued into the third quarter, but they managed to make a few runs in the fourth quarter, just not quite enough to get the job done.

“I was excited with how our boys played in terms of their effort and their try,” coach Corpening said. “The execution just wasn’t quite there as consistently as it needs to be for us to get a win versus a quality team like Torrington.

“I have no doubt that we will improve moving forward.”

Hardy Johnson played a good game, scoring a team high 14 points. Cord Simeral, in his first career start, chipped in 12 points.

The Cats fell to the Trailblazers, 54-64.

On Saturday, the Cats came up against the Burns Broncs, coming away with a 50-42 win.

As expected, the team played a lot better going from game one to game two. Burns is a tough opponent and Corpening thinks their size might have intimidated the Cats a little at the beginning of the game. The average height for the Broncs’ starters is 6’4”.

“We did a good job of pressuring them defensively and speeding up the game,” Corpening said. “The pace of the game played right into our hands.”

The boys played well during the first half, but went to the locker room down by four points.

The boys wore Burns down during the second half, though. The Broncs struggled with the Cats’ press and the team was able to force some timely turnovers. They held them down to 13 points in the second half and played really well down the stretch.

Adley Coyne had a career night, scoring 18 points and grabbing seven rebounds.

“We asked him to guard a 6’6” post from burns and he did a fantastic job on him,” Corpening said. “Gavin Shumway was a spark plug off the bench for us. He scored 10 points and a couple of his baskets were extremely timely.”

Johnson played another nice game, adding 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists to his stats. Eli McCumber and Jase Longwell played extremely hard defensively. McCumber had seven steals and Longwell had 11 rebounds.

Later in the day, the Cats had a heartbreaking loss to the Wheatland Bulldogs, 39-61.

“This was one of those games that I wish we could go back and play as I feel the score is quite misleading,” Corpening said. “The effort and schemes were both solid, but we just really struggled to finish layups and score offensively.”

In the first half the Cats missed eight to 10 layups that they would normally make and they missed several free throws.

As a result, they had a 13-24 deficit heading into the half.

In the third quarter they game themselves a chance early, but the basket was getting bigger for one team (Wheatland) and smaller for the other (the Bobcats).

The wheels came completely off about two minutes into the third quarter and it didn’t get much better from there.

“I hate to make excuses,” Corpening said, “but we have been extremely limited on practice time and we’re just not quite in physical condition at this point to play three tough games in two days. I think this game is the exception and not the rule and we will continue to get better.

“Overall, I saw a ton of positive things and a lot of aspects of the game that we need to work on. We’re a young team and we will continue to grow and get better as the season progresses.”

The Cats will be at home this Friday with varsity taking on the Rawlins Outlaws on at 5 p.m. at the high school. Junior varsity plays at 1 p.m. Friday with the freshman playing at 3 p.m., both at TMS.

The Cats will be on the road to play Glenrock Saturday.