RANGELY | The Rangely lady Panthers tipped off their season Thursday at the White River Meeker Cowboy Shootout, playing Longmont Christian in an exciting game.
“I really feel like for our first game we played three quarters of basketball well, and just tried not to lose in the fourth quarter,” said head coach Jimmie Mergelman. The Panthers won by a score of 40-39.
Skylar Thacker led scorers with 19 points followed by Kacie Lapp with eight, Hannah Wilkie and Alanna Wiley with four. Marlena Miller and Mary Scoggins added two each followed by Makenze Cochrane with one point. Cochrane pulled down 13 rebounds and Wiley followed closely with 11. On Friday in the semifinals game we played the Dolores lady Bears. Skylar Thacker again led the team with 21 points, followed by Lapp, Wilkie, Wiley, Cochrane and Scoggins with two each. Raelynn Norman finished with one from the line. Again, Cochrane led with six rebounds and Kacie Lapp also finished with six rebounds. The lady Panthers won the game 32-16 and advanced to the championship game against Soroco.
“I knew this was going to be a tough game and girls were going to need to step up to stop the run-and-gun offensive style of the Soroco Rams,” Mergelman said. The Rams were coming off an upset win over the seventh ranked Meeker Cowboys and were led by an impressive 48 points from Chloe Veilleux including a state record-tying 10 3-point shots made. The game started off as a close defensive battle between the two teams as the score was 4-6 in favor of Soroco with three minutes left in the first quarter. The Panthers found themselves in foul trouble and were down 4-19 at the end of the first quarter. The Panthers were led in scoring the first quarter by Cochrane and Miller who each scored two points for the Panthers. As the game went on the Panthers settled in and kept the Soroco offense to a stagnant eight points in the third quarter and 10 in the fourth quarter. The lady Panthers ended up falling in the championship game to Soroco by a final score of 25-49. Hannah Wilkie led all Panthers in scoring with 10 points, Lapp with five, Cochrane with three; Chloe Goshe, Marlena Miller and Shauna Lapp all chipped in with two points.
Special to the Herald Times
