Titans defeat Cowboys

MEEKER | “We played well and I thought we played hard and competed,” Meeker head basketball coach Klark Kindler said of the last game of 2017, where the eighth ranked 2A Cowboys, lost to the 3A Coal Ridge Titans, one week ago. The Cowboys will return to play five games in a week, to start the new year.
The Cowboys started out slow and trailed the Titans early but took the lead after three quarters of play. The Titans led 11-5 at the end of the first quarter then Meeker pulled to within one at halftime. The Cowboys came out in the third quarter and outscored the Titans 18-15, to take a 39-37 lead into the final eight minutes but the Titans outscored the Cowboys 23-9 in the fourth to win the game 60-48.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well and they made a few more plays than us,” Coach Kindler said. “We had three bad possessions in a row at the start of the fourth quarter that put us in a hole.”
Meeker senior Logan Hughes led the Cowboys with 22 points, including one, three-pointer, was five-for-five from the free throw line and he pulled down six rebounds. Senior Doak Mantle and junior Stephen Walsh each made a three-pointer and both finished with six points, while junior Brennan Jensen scored five. Seniors Valentine Rosas and Eli Newman, along with freshman Ryan Phelan, all scored a basket. Newman led the team with seven rebounds, Hughes, Mantle, Walsh and Rosas all stole the ball twice. Meeker junior Kale Burke took the Titans’ ball away once and also snapped the net from behind the three-point arch, once.
The Cowboys will open 2018 at home in a league contest against the West Grand Mustangs Jan. 5, then travel to Hayden Saturday for another league game before games in Baggs, Wyo., (Jan. 9) and Rangely (Jan. 11), before ending the five-game stretch back at home against the North Park Wildcats Jan. 12.
“We have a very busy schedule with five games in seven days, four of which are league games,” Coach Kindler said. “It is importan, we get off to a good start.”