Miners take a hit

The Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) High School basketball teams came to Saratoga on Dec. 18 and came away with games that they did not win, but according to both coaches, made their teams stronger.

Girls Team

The Lady Miners roared out the first quarter with 10 points, but Amy Campbell was called for three fouls and head coach Jackie Jones had to pull the player. A. Campbell did not come back into the game until the fourth quarter.

"Amy had a tremendous game," J. Jones said. "She ended up with 13 points and 12 rebounds."

J. Jones said many times A. Campbell had two girls guarding her.

"Even with that, she was able to score," J. Jones said. "It tells you, even with strong adversity being directed at her, she is a player that works hard and overcomes whatever is thrown at her."

J. Jones watched the Lady Miners battle back from a score that had the Lady Panthers up 31-19 in the third quarter to coming within two points in the last minutes of the game at 34-32, but A. Campbell fouled out and the Lady Miners found themselves unable to come back as the buzzer rang and the score ended at 37-32.

"We had other young ladies step up towards the end and do some scoring and an excellent defensive effort by Madison Campbell kept us in the game," J. Jones said. "Rainey Wilson at 5' 1" played down low in the land of the giants tonight against Taylor Bennet and Aubrey Berger and she was fun to watch."

J. Jones acknowledged that although the Lady Miners jumped out in the beginning of the game, the Lady Panthers adjusted.

"Frankly, we did not attack the bucket the way we should have," J.Jones said. "That is something we are going to have to address in practice and work on fine tuning what we didn't do well tonight."

The free throw shooting was 50 percent for the girls, but unfortunately, it was towards the end when the Lady Miners missed some key shots.

"Absolutely, we had some clutch players miss some key free throws at the end of the stretch, but it was one of those games where we learn from," J. Jones said. "This is a group of girls that don't stop working and they don't stop winning."

Boys Game

The game against the Panthers started almost the same with the Miners jumping out with a 10 point lead at 13-3 in the early minutes of the first quarter. It wasn't long before calls on the Miners started to take effect.

Head coach Cliff Jones was clearly frustrated with calls on his players.

When Connor McGraw got his third foul in the first half, Jones comforted the player telling him he was playing a good game and not to blame himself for calls that were not going the way of the Miners.

In the 3rd quarter, with 4:36 left, the Miners were hanging onto their lead at 34-32, but the fouls on the Miners kept coming.

The Panthers took the lead by six points in the 4th quarter, but the Miners were not giving up. With 5:44 left in the game the score HEM was up 44-43. The game stayed tight but with 3:43 the Panthers had the lead at 51-50.

At this point any foul being called on either team was being questioned by fans, but it didn't matter as the buzzer rang ending the game with a tie score at 60-60.

Overtime went badly for the Miners when Shane McGraw was not only called for charging, but in a moment of exasperation the player pounded his fist on the floor. He was called for a technical foul.

C. Jones pulled what starters he had left with the last seconds left in the game as S. McGraw, C. McGraw and Basil Phillips had all fouled out and put in other players to give them experience.

The game ended 71-62.

Although neither the boys or girls games went the way either coach had hoped, both take the loss as positive in the sense that even with many calls not going in favor of their players, the teams played well and scored.

"Once the Christmas break is over, we are going to be ready to play ball and what happened here is history." J. Jones said.

The next scheduled game for both teams is on Jan. 5 against the Encampment Tigers at HEM.