Newcastle men bust the Broncs

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
In a grueling overnight road trip to Burns and then to Rawlins, the Dogies ran up against two very different opponents — which resulted in two very different endings when the smoke cleared.
On Friday, the Dogies dominated the Broncs in cruising their way to a 55-32 victory, but the outcome was much different against the Outlaws, who defeated Newcastle 61-39 - nearly the same margin as the Dogies had bested Burns.
“You know every game that teams are going to give you their best, and we knew that at the very least, we needed to split this weekend of conference play” head coach Allen Von Eye began. “Road games are tough, and when you compound that with an overnight stay and playing in a pretty hostile environment like in Rawlins, we knew we were in for a challenge.”
The Dogies started off the weekend being thrown a bit of a curve ball as Burns added to their roster two new players the squad had not anticipated seeing.
“They came out a little differently than we had prepared for with two 6’2” kids who were pretty good basketball players,” Von Eye explained. “Then whenever you’re playing on the road, that’s always a challenge and you never get anything handed to you.”
Fortunately, the Dogies took the personnel change in stride and hit the ground running with a fast start to the ball game. On the first possession, Cade Ostenson drained a three from the left side baseline, but an off-ball foul committed against Kyle Haslam caused the bucket to be waived off.
Not to be denied, Haslam fired up a three of his own after the Dogies inbounded the ball to put his team up 3-0. 
Von Eye credited Burns with how they started the game, as he admitted they came out strong and did some good things in the first two minutes of the contest. But the Dogie defense and aggressive offensive play was just too much for the Broncs.
The Dogies doubled up Burns at the end of the first quarter with a lead of 14-7, and they held their opponent scoreless in the second taking a 21-7 lead into the locker room at half time.
“Our pressure really bugged them, and we forced them to speed their game up more than they wanted to,” Von Eye stated. “They tried to play fast but they weren’t overly efficient with it, so they ended up turning it over which we took advantage of to score.”
The third quarter was more of the same with the Dogies extending their lead to 31-11, which allowed Von Eye to sit his first string for at least half of the final quarter of play and give his bench the opportunity to see some court time.
“We had a really nice third and beginning of the fourth, which was exactly what we needed to do because then we were able to get some of our younger guys into the game to get some considerable minutes,” Von Eye nodded. “We did get outscored 10-0 in that stretch, but it was just a great opportunity for them to get some valuable time on the court against varsity players.”
Haslam had one of the best games of his varsity career on the night, as he filled up all but one column of the stats with 12 points, one rebound, two assists, one block and one charge taken.
Early the next morning, the team left their hotel in Cheyenne and headed down I-80 toward Rawlins. Von Eye was wary of the challenge the Outlaws presented to his team given their combination of height and guard play, in addition to the environmental pressures the venue always presents.
“Rawlins is a tough place to play, and they are a good basketball team,” he insisted. “It was pretty hostile there as usual, and not surprisingly it started that way with people trying to get under my skin within 30 seconds or so. So it was interesting.”
The first half of play was pretty even with both teams battling hard. The Outlaws held a slim 26-22 lead going into the locker room, but unfortunately the second half was all Rawlins as they outscored Newcastle 12-4 in the third and 23-13 in the fourth quarter. 
“We played solid defense the whole first half outside of about three possessions where we lost shooters,” Von Eye began. “They extended the lead to eight or 10 in that stretch, but we battled back with some big buckets, and Cade hit a buzzer beater to bring us within four at the half.”
Uncharacteristically, the Dogies just could not put together anything on offense when they emerged from the locker room. In fact, six minutes ran off the clock in the third quarter before they were able to break the seal on the bucket, and by that time the hole was just too deep for the Dogies.
“We came out hesitant in the third. For the first two minutes we played pretty solid, but we just couldn’t score and we were so out of synch offensively,” Von Eye sighed. “We missed very uncharacteristic bunnies, and if we couldn’t get it inside we didn’t get any looks at all. We allowed their extended pressure to get to us, and we kind of played into their hands.”
Von Eye admitted that he and his team were disappointed with the loss. However, he also stressed that the score wasn’t necessarily indicative of the game the Dogies played. Though the fourth quarter was indeed one-sided, the coach felt his squad battled hard and were in the game until that point of the contest.
This weekend, the Dogies open up quadrant play with a road game against the Bobcats in Thermopolis on Friday and will follow that by hosting the Buffalo Bison on Saturday.