The Dolores Bears (2-8) will look to snap a five-game slide this weekend in back-to-back away games.
Last Friday, the Bears jumped out to a 17-12 first-quarter lead at Norwood (7-3), but eventually fell 59-54 in a back-and-forth game.
“It was a five-point game most of the way,” said head coach Larry Schwartz. “They would be up a little bit, then we would be up, it just went back-and-forth all night. And then they got the last little spurt.”
After scoring 32 in the Bears’ previous game, senior Ben Lykins continued his hot streak by dropping in 26 points and grabbing 10 rebounds for a double-double.
Jalen Balderrama added 12 points and Kyle Biery scored seven.
Lykins entered Saturday’s contest averaging 26 points per game over the span of his previous three, but on the second night of a back-to-back against Ouray (9-1) on Saturday, fatigue set in.
“We definitely had a road-hangover from going to Norwood,” said Schwartz. “I think our boys just looked sluggish and tired today, against one of the top teams in 1A.”
The CHSAANow Class 1A No. 4 Trojans came out gunning and held a 21-5 lead at the end of the first quarter.
“We had to change our zone,” said Schwartz. “We were going to come out in a 1-3-1 because we knew they wanted to shoot threes, and they did – but we weren’t ready to run that 1-3-1.”
“We haven’t practiced it a whole lot, we just tried to pull it out of the bag from last year and it didn’t work,” he continued. “So we went back to our 2-3 and I think that helped.”
After the change in defense, the Bears limited the Trojans to just six points to go into half trailing 27-14.
But Dolores was lethargic to start the second half and Ouray opened the third quarter on a 15-0 run. From there, the Trojans kept their foot on the gas and ran away with a 60-31 win.
Dolores got scoring from just five players, led by Lykins’ nine points. Justin Purkat added seven points and Balderrama, Tristen Medina and Branden Donaldson each scored five.
The Bears had five days off to recover after the loss to Ouray, but they have another back-to-back slated for this weekend.
They’ll travel to Ridgway (6-2) on Friday to take on the Demons, and then they play at Nucla (1-5) on Saturday.