On Tuesday, Feb. 20 the Rangely Panthers attempted to keep their season alive traveling to Hayden, Colorado, to take on the Tigers in the district tournament play-in game. Earlier this year the Panthers made the same trip and ended up falling 69-49.
The Panthers came out of the gates on fire from deep-hitting four first quarter threes. Despite the great shooting from outside the Tigers still had a lead of 15-12 at the end of the quarter. The Panthers, who played tough man-to-man defense all night long, held the Tigers to only six points in the second quarter and also added two more three-pointers to give them the lead going into halftime at 23-21. The battle would continue to be very equally matched with no team gaining much of a lead.
At the end of the third quarter Rangely was leading 39-37. Late in the fourth Marcos Quintana would tie the game up 45-45 after hitting one of two free throws with two minutes left. From there the Panthers were able to have three great defensive stops, but unfortunately had costly turnovers and both teams would not score in the last two minutes and the game would go to overtime.
The Panthers fell In overtime as Hayden quickly took the lead by five points. The final score of the game would be 56-50 in favor of the Tigers. This loss would end the Panthers’ season with a record of 5-15.
Leading the way for the Panthers was Lincoln Harris who scored 15 points on five three-pointers, Marcos Quintana who added 12 points and Landon Bollinger who scored 10 points. The Panthers will be looking forward to next season as they will only graduate one senior and have made a lot of improvement over the season.
