Men struggle to put together a whole game

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
In back-to-back games last weekend, the Dogies played as good or better basketball than their opponents for three quarters of the contests. Unfortunately, one bad quarter was enough to seal their fate against Torrington on Friday and Big Horn on Saturday as the team dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t get out of in the end.
“We started out fine against Torrington and we played pretty well in the second half, but the second quarter just killed us,” head coach Allen Von Eye admitted. “We played really good defense but we just struggled to get buckets.”
The Blazers held a slim 6-4 lead at the end of the first quarter of play, however they went on a 22-3 run in the second to take a commanding 28-7 lead into the locker room.
“We made them work for some things, but we struggled to get buckets. We missed a lot of inside shots and some good looks, then we got called for a couple of charges which made us hesitant to go to the rack,” Von Eye frowned. “When you’re playing great defense but you can’t get any buckets, that makes it hard. Then we had a lapse in the second quarter where we let them get a couple of easy buckets when we had some defensive breakdowns.”
An offensive drought by the Dogies was met with uncharacteristically good shooting by Torrington from beyond the arc in the second frame of play. 
“The freshman kid who starts for them went into the game 2-22 from beyond the arc, so I made a decision to switch up our defensive strategy and sag off him in order to shut down their best player,” Von Eye explained. “Overall, that worked well for us but then the freshman hit three threes.” 
The Dogies then had a 21 point mountain to climb in the second half. Although they played much better offensively and outscored the Blazers 24-16, it wasn’t enough to overcome their deficit so the team dropped the contest 31-44
“We attacked and got the rim, and some of our younger guys came in and just played really well,” Von Eye nodded. “Slade [Roberson] came in and attacked well inside and got a couple of buckets to fall. Tate [Engle] was aggressive all night long, and Aidan [Chick] gave us some good minutes as well. They came in and took some of the offensive pressure off Dylon [Tidyman] so he was able to get some things going a little bit.”
Tidyman was the leading scorer for the Dogies with 17 points. He was followed by Zach Purviance with five, Roberson with four, Landon Engle and Christian Santos each had two, and Tate Engle put in one to round out the scoring.
“We played solid defense and rebounded really well. We did a lot of good things, but you can’t play just three quarters of basketball at this level,” Von Eye stressed. “Taking even a portion of a quarter off is going to result in a pretty significant loss, and we just couldn’t claw our way back in the game.”
The Dogies got a break from 3A action on Saturday as the Big Horn Rams came to town for an interclass matchup. Though a smaller school, the Rams boast a fifth place ranking among 2A teams. 
“We stressed that we needed to get off to a fast start, because we knew that Big Horn would be a worthy opponent,” Von Eye began. “We got out in transition a little more and wanted to run the floor a little bit.”
Early in the first quarter, the Dogies executed that game plan, getting some great transition buckets with easy layups and jumped out to an 11-2 lead. While attacking the floor on the offensive end, the squad also did some really nice things defensively. 
The Rams were able to rally a little at the end of the first quarter, but Newcastle held an 11-7 lead heading into the second frame of play. Big Horn maintained their momentum and outscored the Dogies 14-6 to take a four point lead into the half. 
Unfortunately, the third quarter would be Newcastle’s undoing. The Rams came out firing on all cylinders while the Dogies struggled to get things going again.
“Offensively, we were way out of synch. We tried to make some adjustments but they didn’t work. We didn’t run our sets well, and didn’t execute offensively,” Von Eye sighed. “The Rams are very patient and disciplined and they got the look they wanted every time. They got some shots to fall even though they were contested. Their lead got up to double digits so again, we found ourselves in the hole, which makes it hard.”
Though the Dogies rallied to outscore Big Horn 10-9 in the fourth, they dropped their second game of the weekend 35-50. 
Once again Tidyman led his team with 16 points and he also hit double digits in rebounding with 14 boards. Purviance had nine on the night, Roberson, Tate Engle, Bradyn Frye and Santos each had two, and McFarland and Chick added one point each.
This week the Dogies will see the Burns Broncs for the first time this season as they come to town on Friday evening. On Saturday, they will host the Cardinals of Chadron, Neb.
“This week, we have to make every single possession count. We have to start playing all four quarters, and we have to start executing the things we need to do,” Von Eye determined. “We need to start building confidence against Burns, because Chadron is a good ball team. It would be good for us to get some momentum for that game and for the games coming up in the next couple of weeks.”