TMS boys basketball season starts

The Thermopolis Middle School eighth grade boys basketball teams kicked off their season with two games this past week.

Starting off, the B team traveled to Worland on Tuesday, and the A and B teams hosted Cody at home on Thursday. Since the game on the road to Worland was a B only game, the team was able to get some good minutes for some of the players that have been working hard on their development. "Overall, we played fairly well for the first game of the season and came out with a win in OT" stated Coach Ryan Shaffer. Final score was Thermopolis with the win, 38-41.

Thursday, TMS hosted Cody for home games. For the A team, coach Shaffer said, "This was a great start of the season for us as we started the game with some strong quarters. We were able to work on a lot of our pressure defense and scoring throughout the game and see what needed to be addressed for the games to follow." With Buckner and Cheatham down low, we had much stronger presence in the paint opening up way for Welch to sneak in there and grab a few offensive rebounds. We had seven different players score out of the nine on the team. Overall, a great win for us and a great start to the season,"

High scoring players of the game: Welch 14 points and Simeral with 13. Final score was 46-42 for the Thermopolis win. 

For the B team game, coach Shaffer said, "After opening with an OT win against Worland, our defense gave up a little more than we wanted. Going down in the first, we fought back to get the lead just before halftime. Although we couldn't finish it the way we wanted, I was very impressed with our offense and how many were able to find a basket. We had 10 different players score and many got some good minutes that they used to improve their skills."

High scoring players of the game:Cheatham with 6 points and Johnson/Martinez with 5 points. Final score, 32-42 Cody. 

The teams will be playing in Lovell and Worland this week.