Bobcat basketball season opens at Burns Classic

The Bobcat varsity basketball team had their first competition of the season at the Burns Classic last week.

Coach Shane Corpening stated, "The boys played really hard. From a defensive standpoint, we were flying around and forcing turnovers. I thought we did an okay job of rebounding the ball. We certainly have some room for improvement there, but for the first weekend, it wasn't bad. Offensively, we really struggled to make shots. We got plenty of open looks at the basket and we just missed a lot of wide-open layups that we shouldn't miss. I would probably guess that left 20 points off the scoreboard for each game just on layups alone. Obviously, that won't win you a lot of games at the 3A level. We need to clean that up moving forward."

He also commented that the team struggled to get into their offensive sets. Torrington and Wheatland both played aggressive man-to-man up the line defense. Corpening said, "It took us out of our game. As a coach, I should have done a better job of preparing the boys for that. All in all, it might not seem like a good weekend on paper, but we have the boys moving in the right direction and they will continue to improve."

Stats include:

McCoy Longwell had 21 points v. Torrington.

Gavin Shumway had 24 points v. Burns

Cord Simeral had 15 points v. Burns

Corbin Simeral had 14 points v. Wheatland

Final scores for the tournament were the Bobcats 34, Wheatland 45, a win against Burns with a final score of 67-43 and a loss against Torrington, 49-58.

The Bobcats are up next Friday and Saturday at Glenrock and Buffalo.