RHS boys nearly sweep Manila b-ball tournament

RANGELY | The Rangely Panthers basketball teams participated in the Manila Shootout, a four team tournament, on Dec. 16-17. The JV boys, JV girls and varsity girls all took home championship trophies in their respective brackets and the varsity boys threatened to complete the clean sweep. However, the 6-0 Manila Mustang boys proved just tough enough to keep Rangely from sweeping the tournament.
The Panthers came out to a slow start in the first quarter against Mount Vernon (Murray, Utah) in their first round matchup, but caught fire in the second quarter and second half to pull away to a 73-51 victory. Patrick Scoggins finished with 26 points and 15 rebounds. Kobe Broome, Brennan Noyes and Mikey Sheppard pitched in 15 points, 11 points and eight points, respectively. Troy Allred and Austin Ficken both put up four points. Marshall Webber contributed three points and Stetson Cudo chipped in two points.
The championship game proved to be a slugfest with each team trading blows. Manila jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the first stanza, but under Kobe Broome’s hot hand the Panthers roared back to tie things up at 21-21 by halftime. Manila’s physical play proved to be the deciding factor in the second half giving them a two point edge and a 54-52 victory over the Rangely squad.
“Manila is a tough team. They are well-coached and their boys execute well. We can’t have 17 turnovers and expect to win games like this, but we came close to earning a ‘W’ despite ourselves. I was proud of the boys for keeping their composure and fighting hard down the stretch,” said coach Kyle Boydstun.
Kobe Broome led a balanced scoring attack with 15 points, Patrick Scoggins and Brennan Noyes both had 11, and Mikey Sheppard put up 10 points. Doug Denison put up a well-timed three in the fourth quarter and Troy Allred contributed two points. Patrick Scoggins was named to the all-tournament team, putting up 37 points, 25 rebounds, 7 assists and four steals over the two games.
The Panthers return to action with games at Hayden (4 p.m. at Jan. 6) and a home game versus Soroco at 1 p.m. on Jan. 7.