Cokeville ends Saratoga's winning streak

It has been said that streaks were meant to be broken and the Saratoga Panthers unfortunately were reminded of that quote on Friday while on the road. Saratoga faced another breed of Panther in Cokeville, who came out on top in a 76-60 win.

In many ways it was no surprise to Jason Williams, Saratoga Panther head coach, that a trip to Cokeville is never an easy ride. However the Panthers took a split the following day as they beat the Farson-Eden Pronghorns 67-66.

“The Cokeville/Farson road trip is always tough, so to come out of it with a split is something the boys should be proud of,” Williams said. “Friday night we played Cokeville on their big floor, and we just seemed pretty flat the entire game. It was our worst rebounding game of the year, and our assists to field goals ratio was not good. We went into halftime down by 6 (points), but we couldn’t get anything going in the third quarter and ended up down 14 by the end of the third.”

On the Saturday road trip, Williams said his guys came out a little bit better than they did on Friday despite the fact they only won by one point.

“We came out with more energy for Saturday’s game against Farson, but the Pronghorns started off red hot and hit five 3 pointers in the first quarter.” Williams said. “We went into halftime down 34 – 20. We started slowly chipping away at the lead in the second half and were only down six at the end of the 3rd quarter.”

In the 3rd quarter, Farson—with about two minutes left in the game—started trading baskets with Saratoga and ended up tied at 57 going into the final quarter. In the 4th quarter Finn Rolseth hit a free throw with seven seconds left and Farson missed two shots at the buzzer and the Panthers held on for the hard fought conference road win, 67 – 66.

The Saratoga Panthers will have another showdown with Valley rival the Encampment Tigers (9-5, 0-2) at 4 p.m. on February 1 in Saratoga. They will then be on the road where they will be hosted by the Little Snake River Valley Rattlers (6-8, 0-3) at noon on February 2 in Baggs.

Scorebox

Saratoga v. Cokeville: 60-76

Finn Rolseth 21 points

Fischer Williams 19 points

Saratoga v. Farson: 67-66

Finn Rolseth, 22 points, 6 rebounds

Fischer Williams, 15 points

Snowdon Williams, 12 points, 7 rebounds, 6 steals, 4 assists

Burris Berger, 8 points, 4 rebounds

Hazen Williams, 6 points, 4 rebounds