Miners building their team

by Mike Armstrong

"In the past four or five years, I don't think I have ever had a group of players give it their all the way this team did this past week," Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) Head Coach Cliff Jones said. "I have had teams go to State and won more games, but I don't believe I have had a group of boys, 15 to 18 play so hard for me and each other. They are a credit to our school in a way that is even better if we went the whole season undefeated."

The HEM Miners played Rock River Longhorns on Friday in Rock River. The score was close, but the Miners lost in the last seconds 49-46.  

Jones was happy with all the players, but said Rayce Ward played a great game.

"I thought that was the best I have seen Rayce play in all his years of basketball," Jones said. "He got 10 rebounds and he played against a kid that is talented and 6' 7". Rayce really impressed me."

The Miners led most to the game, but when the Longhorns needed a basket they went to their big guy and at the end he pulled the Longhorns ahead.

Jones said there was balanced scoring by the Miners with Dylan Romero, Kyler Proffitt and Hayden Atencio all hitting double figures for the weekend and Ward, Jesse Deegan and Cody Priest also chipping in points.

The game against the Encampment Tigers the next day had the Miners face a team who had lost the night before to the Saratoga Panthers and were hungry for a win for the week.

"I have to give Coach Gilbert (Dwayne) a lot of credit on how he handled the game. The game could have gotten out of hand pretty quick, since the 1st quarter was 24-5 in their favor, and did a nice job of reigning his kids in," Jones said. "Unfortunately that game was not as closed as the score might have indicated. He had to play his varsity starters which he did 1st quarter and then he played the bench. 3rd quarter he played the varsity starters and then the bench. I thought "

Jones said he felt the Miners were a bit sluggish in the 1st quarter, but did improve as time went on.

The score ended Tigers with 61 points and the Miners with 39.

Again the Miners fielded six players for both games, but Jones said the team should not let their lack of players be any excuse for not winning.

"I told the kids in the beginning of the season, that at no point will we use our limited numbers as the reason for us not winning basketball games," Jones said. "That is the challenge of basketball. The Hickory Huskers only had five players and look what they did (Jones is referring to the movie "Hoosiers"). We have the kids want to be on the team and those are the kids we have playing on the team. We aren't going to use the excuse that we are short-handed or that we played the night before and we are tired."

He does acknowledge he does have to use his timeouts differently than usual..

"I don't use them for game strategy; I use the to give the boys a break," Jones said. "I have to, but in the end with the effort they are putting in, it works."

The next game is on January 13 against the Saratoga Panthers in Saratoga.