Back In Business: Herders get first win of 2024 in rout of Moorcroft

     The holiday break and weather-related cancellations sidelined the Glenrock High School boys basketball team since last month. The squad finally made its 2024 debut Jan. 19-20 at home with mixed results.

The Herders’ toughest test was right out of the gate  against No. 2 state ranked Buffalo. The struggles of not playing limited GHS at times in a 59-29 setback.

The group played well at both ends of the court. Shots just didn’t fall in the first game of the new year and the Bisons’ depth made the most of it.

“I thought the boys played extremely hard for going over 30 days without playing a varsity game, but Buffalo’s physicality was able to disrupt our offensive flow,” GHS coach Shawn Huxtable said. “It was a great game for us to prepare for the rest of conference play. Defensively we played hard and did a pretty good job against their main scorers, but with their depth they were able to find other players to contribute and ultimately we couldn’t overcome it.”

After shaking off the holiday dust against Buffalo, Glenrock returned to the court a day later to fight for a ticket to state by thumping Moorcroft 79-39.

The Herders were simply impressive from the opening jump. They unleashed a punishing fast break that the Eagles never slowed.

The game was only close after Gavin Zeiger and  Mason O’Brien scored the first buckets in a 4-4 tie. That was just the beginning as GHS scored 12 unanswered points with a variety of shots via Ayden Moulton, Casey Sarvey and Charlie Schowengerdt to grab a 16-4 advantage.

Moorcroft went five minutes without a basket until scoring in the final 60 seconds. Part of the Eagles’ struggles was fueled by the defensive play of Moulton, Sarvey and O’Brien as the Converse County boys led 18-5 after one period.

The quick start was no fluke as Glenrock scored nine of the first 10 points of the second stanza. Nate Bigford buried the first three pointer and O’Brien followed with a trey of his own while Schowengerdt as well as Moulton dropped free throws up build a 27-5 advantage.

The biggest difference was the tenacious Glenrock defense that stymied Moorcroft in all corners of the court while allowing just five points in each of the first two periods. Offensively, Sarvey scored on an offense rebound, Schowengerdt sank a layup on a beautiful feed from Moulton and soon converted a traditional three-point to put the game out of reach at halftime 41-10.

“I thought Saturday against Moorcroft the kids did a tremendous job of rebounding from the tough physical game against Buffalo. We were able to flip the script a little bit and apply that intensity and physicality we felt Friday night on Moorcroft,” Huxtable praised. “We were able to speed them up and create turnovers with our full-court pressure, which led to layups for us and once the snowball started rolling it just kind of got out of hand.”