Early-season adversity is nothing new for any high school sports team. For the Manitou Springs boys basketball team, a lesson was learned in the adversity it faced at the University Tournament last weekend.
Manitou went 1-2, getting a win against Frontier Academy sandwiched between losses to Middle Park and DSST: Montview. Moving forward, the players and coach Brian Vecchio expressed the need for upperclassmen to ensure that they’re taking on the leadership roles that come with being veterans on the team.
“We obviously haven’t figured everything out team-wise,” Lairden Rogge said. “We got pressured in the games we lost and the pressure affected us a fair amount. We fell apart and we backed off from the challenge and shied away.”
Rogge scored nine points in the loss to Middle Park, second on the team only to John Maynard’s 18.
It was a rough weekend overall when considering the Mustangs (3-2 overall) had given up a total of 70 points in their first two games but gave up far more than that in their losses. Middle Park won the game 58-41 and Montview won 74-66. Manitou rolled to a 64-28 win over Frontier Academy.
“We need our leaders to lead,” coach Brian Vecchio said. “We need our best players to step up and lead guys. We identified some areas over the weekend that we really need to focus in on and one of them is turning the ball over.”
The early minutes of the Frontier Academy win were a battle, but Evan Scherr scored seven of the Mustangs’ first 11 points to help the team keep pace before it eventually pulled away.
The Mustangs have a couple more games before going into the winter break, but seeing some flaws in their play comes at a time when there is still plenty of opportunity to clean up the mistakes and head into January a more polished team.
“It was crucial for us to see (adversity) then and not after the break,” Rogge said. “Right now, it’s easy to fix because we still have plenty of practices and a lot of the season left. If we saw it later, like in the playoffs, it’s tougher to come back from.”
The Mustangs head to Bishop Machebeuf on Thursday before playing in their home opener against Atlas Prep on Friday night.
Their Tuesday, Dec. 13, game against La Junta was postponed, possibly to Wednesday, Jan. 4.