Cassidy Blechman pitches the ball toward the basket during the Mustangs’ Dec. 1 game against Peyton.
After the first quarter against Colorado Springs Christian School, the Manitou girls basketball team was down just five points. Scoring the rest of the way, however, turned out to be a tall task.
The Mustangs scored just seven points over the final three quarters to fall to the Lions 52-17 on Jan. 13. In those three quarters, they made just two field goals.
The scoring woes continued when they traveled to Salida two days later. The Mustangs (6-5 overall, 2-3 Tri-Peaks) went scoreless in the third quarter of that game and ultimately lost 43-27.
“It’s getting into the habit of discipline,” coach Jessie Nunley said. “When something isn’t happening for one of us, the rest of us have to create those opportunities. I think we’re getting there.”
They need to get there a tad sooner than later.
The Mustangs have a stretch of league games in the next few weeks that are crucial to seeding for the Tri-Peaks tournament. Going through these extreme scoring droughts will be detrimental to putting the team in a position to win games and get an easier track through the district tournament.
“It all comes in practice first,” Ashlyn Thomson said.
“We have to get as many reps as we can whether it’s shooting, passing or just playing collectively as a team. We need to come together. We go in spurts where some people will shoot really great one game and it doesn’t carry over into the next.”
Thomson led the scoring effort in both games, scoring 10 against CSCS and eight against Salida. Sami-Benge Kulzer scored three against CSCS and five against Salida. Abby Parker and McKesson Rhodes also added scoring support against the Spartans, scoring six and five, respectively.
The Mustangs were slightly shorthanded as Bella Coscetti missed both games. Lexi Vigil will be out this week, forcing Nunley to rework her lineups to maximize scoring opportunities for her players.
“We need to have good preparation and commitment to doing the things that we’ve practiced and that we know how to do,” Nunley said. “Hopefully we’ll have more consistency with numbers and we’ll be getting healthier. That will help.”