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Vail Christian basketball dumps Soroco

The Saints will play VMS and root for Rangely

Vail Christian's Jesse Gonzales scores 16 points in a 66-53 victory over Soroco on Monday night. (Chris Dillmann
Daily file photo)

OK, maybe it’s time for a new strategy.

The first-quarter lead is apparently highly overrated for Vail Christian basketball. Visiting Soroco raced out to 19-11 first-quarter lead on Monday night before the Saints rallied for a 66-53 victory Monday night in Edwards.

To review the last three games, Vail Christian is 2-0 after getting housed in the first quarter against West Grand and Soroco, but 0-1 in games in which they take double-digit, first-half leads against Meeker.



In times of such great confusion — say, like having a global pandemic — it’s nice that Vail Christian basketball makes sense.

On the web

Vail Mountain basketball is at Vail Christian tonight at 7. We break down all the angles on http://www.vaildaily.com.

We’re thinking that, from a Vail Christian point of view, that Saints should just give the Vail Mountain School 15 points to start Thursday’s game at 7 p.m. in Edwards and that they’ll be all set. (OK, probably not the greatest idea.)

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Speaking of the Vail Mountain game on Thursday, VMS, Vail Christian and Meeker all sit at 5-1 atop the Northern Division of the 2A Slope. VMS holds the golden ticket.

If the Gore Rangers beat the Saints on Thursday, they advance to Saturday’s title game against the South champ. Vail Christian needs Rangely to beat Meeker on Thursday — go Panthers; the game game is in Rangely — and a win over VMS to win the division.

Oh, yeah, the game

It may not mean as much to the current players as it does to the staff, fans and alumni, but beating Soroco is always a good thing. It’s also a great bounce-back after a deflating loss to Meeker. Young teams, like the Saints, need to learn how to rebound from tough losses.

Jesse Gonzales led another balanced scoring effort with 16 points. While it’s just one game, one of the themes of this shortened season has been finding “the guy,” by which we mean, who’s the guy to whom the Saints go to in crunch time?

In the past, it’s been the usual suspects — Robbie Bowles, Sebastian or Alec Moritz — but this edition has yet to find that person. Gonzales, based on his varsity experience which is more than most from last year than his teammates, not to mention his talent, could be the candidate.

We are not declaring Gonzales the solution to everything, just that he might step into that role. It’s something merely to ponder.

Sean Boselli, meanwhile, is doing a little bit of everything. He had seven points, eight assists and six rebounds against the Rams. Every team needs a jack of all trades like Boselli.

Quinn Downey also chipped in 13 points. It’s nice to see the sophomore contributing more and more. Also on the Downey front, Connor had 10 points. Leo Rothenberg added 12.

The super stat of the night was that Vail Christian was 19-for-26 from the line, and 23 of those shots came in the second half. Always knock down the chippies, boys.


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