Tigers rack up three wins for homecoming

When a coach has four or five players who are scoring in double digits, it makes it difficult for the opposing team to figure out who to guard. "That's a sign of a good team," head coach Clint Bromley said.

The Encampment Tigers are pretty happy to have three wins behind them from the weekend, Bromley said. The Tigers (2-0 conference, 12-1 overall) beat North Park 88-44 Thursday night. The highest score the Tigers had to date was 85, which is the highest score in the state until the Tigers broke their own record.

Friday night, the Tigers traveled to Hanna to play Hanna-Elk Mountain-Medicine Bow (HEM) (6-5) and won that game 66-44.

Saturday, Valley rival Saratoga Panthers (0-2,1-10) fell to the Tigers 78-45.

Winning those three games gave the team a good practice for regional and state competition, since they will have to play three games at each of the tournaments.

Bromley said he was pleased to see that his basketball team has the caliber to play and win three good games. The Saratoga Panthers didn't have a chance against the Tigers as the only time the Panthers had the lead was in the first minute of the game.

The Tigers outplayed and out shot the Panthers ending the first quarter 18-11. The second quarter, the Panthers kept pace with the Tigers, but were still behind by 10 points at the half – 38-28.

During the third quarter, the Tigers gained another 18 points while the Panthers scored 12 points.

The final quarter clinched the deal, as the Tigers scored 18 points to the Panthers 2.

With the Tigers third in the state on defense, they are looking to keep up their stats.

"We don't focus on 3-pointers," Bromley said. He encourages the boys to take the shot when they have the opportunity and it shows. Thursday, the boys hit 56 percent of their 3-pointers while on Saturday against Saratoga, they only hit 9 percent of their 3-pointers.

Still, in most of the games this weekend, at least four players were hitting double digits in scoring.

Against Walden, Gage Bartlett scored 23 points, Guy Erickson had 19 and Hunter Hammer hit 13 and KeeGan Johnson had 12. Jared Stewart and Wyatt Cox added 9 and 8 points respectively.

Erickson was the high scorer against HEM with 17 points. Bartlett had 17 points with Johnson making 10 points. Cox followed with 7, while Hammer had 6 and Stewart had 4 points.

Erickson was the top scorer against Saratoga scoring 24 points. Cox followed with 20 points, while Bartlett had 11 points and Johnson had 10 points. Hammer scored 7 points.

This week marks the middle of the conference season and the competition is going to get stiffer, Bromley said.

In the last match-up between Encampment and Rock River, Encampment beat then 71-8

This week, the Tigers play Rock River (4-9) with junior varsity beginning at 4 p.m. on Friday in Rock River.

Encampment hosts Little Snake River (1-1, 5-9) with junior varsity beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

This will be the first match up against Little Snake River in the 1A Southeast Conference this season, who is ranked third.

The Encampment Tigers hold the No. 1 spot in the conference.