A pair for districts, please
The Battle Mountain girls basketball team broke every huddle with that word Tuesday night in its pig-tail game against Delta in Eagle-Vail.
And, by evening’s end, Sara LyBarger and Kim White were belting out R-E-S-P-E-C-T just outside the locker room after the Huskies socked it to Delta 53-41 to advance to the 4A district tournament for the first time.
“The thing today was to go out and earn respect,” Huskies coach David Hite said. “Our program has taken our lumps.It’s just a great win for the program.”
“It definitely feels good to win. We definitely deserve it,” White said. “We did it for the seniors.”
Battle Mountain got lots of balanced scoring, good rebounding and plenty of D in their third win of the season. There was only one problem with the Huskies Tuesday night.
Support Local Journalism
“I just wish at the end of the game we could learn how to stall a bit,” Hite said with a laugh.”
Nobody’s perfect. The Huskies just haven’t had much time to practice their four corners offense in the last few years.
Guard Mary Ramirez led Battle Mountain with 13 points and five steals. Erin Drumm and Meagan Reigel both had 11. LyBarger had a nice night with seven points, five boards and four steals. Kati Russell chipped in four, playing gamely after injuring her elbow.
“It was a team effort. All the girls contributed,” Hite said. “They came out focused. We knew what we wanted to do and that was the best they ran the offense all year. “
Hite emphasized that the Huskies are not done. They take on Moffat County Thursday.
“After a win like this, we come back harder the next day and practice,” LyBarger said. “So when we win something like this, it makes us feel good about practicing and running and getting back to work.”
Boys make it two for districts
DELTA – Even if you don’t like cell phones, they provided the good news Tuesday night.
As the Battle Mountain girls team celebrated its win over Delta, the news reached Eagle-Vail that the boys team had done the same – Battle Mountain 54, Delta 51.
So Battle Mountain will be sending two teams to districts for the first time since 2000.
“Everybody’s excited to be going to districts,” Huskies coach Philip Tronsrue. “The one thing I keep telling everybody is that the team we have out there right now has only been together for three weeks. We starting to go in the right direction and play some pretty good basketball.”
That certainly could be said of Chris Romero, who led all scorers with 19 points, including five buckets from downtown.
“It was amazing,” Romero said. “Right when it left my hand, I knew it was in.”
Connor Drumm got in on the act with 10, while Blake Gammon had nine. Beau Beckley chipped in six and Jared Cliver picked up four.
Battle Mountain broke the game open in the third quarter, outscoring Delta 12-2.
“In the third quarter we had zone fouls and did a nice job on defense,” Tronsrue said. “We stepped up and took control of the game.”
And it didn’t hurt that the Huskies made their free throws down the stretch to clinch their date with Rifle on Thursday.
Chris Freud is the sports editor for the Vail Daily. Contact him at (970) 949-0555, ext. 614 or by e-mail at cfreud@vaildaily.com.
