No Burns bout it, boys win: Herders bounce back from road loss by corralling Broncs, 66-55

The Glenrock High School boys basketball team buckled up for a bumpy ride last weekend with a roller-coaster ride of games. The group won a game and lost another but had positives to build upon both conference battles.

The 24-hour run started on the road Jan. 23 in the hostile home-court advantage of Buffalo. GHS got into early foul trouble and fell into a hole that it could not coming climb of in a deceiving 86-56 loss to the fifth-ranked Buffaloes.

“The Buffalo game went okay for about half of the first quarter.  At that point Owen Partridge and Talon Humphrey each picked up two fouls.  We had to pull them out of the game for a while and the lead ballooned to about 20 points before we were able to get them back in. Buffalo was playing well on both sides of the floor, and that early big lead gave them even more confidence on offense,” head coach Adam Humphrey said. “Buffalo has a good home court environment and the energy from the crowd was definitely a factor for them.  From our team’s standpoint, we didn’t do much of anything well on the defensive side of the court.  We were not good in transition defense and we struggled to defend in the half court.  Our lack of defense was a major factor in their scoring 86 points.”

The Herders returned home the next day and the flow of the game was much different – beginning with less fouls and more defensive stops against Burns. They jumped ahead big early on and braved a late Broncs push to chalk up a 68-55 3A East victory.

“I was so proud of the way the boys responded after the Buffalo game.  In the locker room after the Buffalo game, I challenged them to come back tomorrow and respond,” the coach said. “It can be tough coming off a bad loss like the Buffalo game and come out and play the next day.  They put the Buffalo game behind them and responded like they were challenged to do.”

It was a slow start that didn’t last very long as junior Owen Partridge and sophomore Talon Humphrey hit the first two jump shots but the crew still trailed briefly at 6-5. Those points were the beginning of GHS scoring 10 unanswered points which included senior Nate Bigford hitting all the three free throws, and Partridge stealing the ball and driving the length of the floor for two points and a 15-6 lead.

Burns finally ended the run with a trey. However, Glenrock didn’t cool off and added five more points courtesy of Bigford via a three pointer and free throws to build a 20-9 advantage after one quarter.

The Herders carried some of the momentum over and chalked up a bucket from sophomore Aaron Wasik. Another triple by Bigford, and Talon Humphrey dropped in a lay up to build the biggest lead of the afternoon at 27-11.

“We certainly did a much better job on both sides of the court against Burns.  Buffalo is a much better team, but all around we did defend a lot better in the Burns game.  We did not shoot well, and a lot of the shots we missed were right around the basket,” the coach said. “It ended up one of our worst shooting nights of the season, but we did a good job of drawing fouls and getting to the free throw line.  We ended up shooting 24 for 27 from the free throw line which was the difference in the game. Talon went 11-for-11, Nate Bigford went seven-for-seven, and Aaron Wasik went two-for-two  from the free-throw line.  Many of these were down the stretch when the game was still close.”

The Broncs applied a full-court defense and it helped make things a little closer at the break. Glenrock only scored three points in next three minutes – missing seven shots – and Burns scored 14 in the final four minutes to cut the GHS lead to three at 29-26 with 1:19 on the clock.

The Herders didn’t remain cold. They scored the six straight points thanks to senior Brady Dona,  and Talon Humphrey to inch ahead 35-26 at halftime.
Glenrock caught fire from the start of the third period to build a lead that was safe the rest of the way. Wasik buried two three pointers and a lay up to grow the lead to 43-30.

Burns had short rally midway through the quarter to make it a five-point contest at 42-37. Like they did all game, the Herders had an answer and broke the Burns press with shots by senior Miles Wieser, Talon Humphrey, Partridge and a three pointer Colter Lewis from the corner to take a 53-42 advantage into the fourth.
That was just enough of cushion to hold off the Broncs who forced four GHS turnovers and got within three points at 55-52 with 2:23 left to play.

The game got no closer. Wasik was big defensively with consecutive steals which were turned into points by Partridge, Talon Humphrey and Wasik to seal the deal.
The conference road gets no easier this week. Glenrock will host No. 2-ranked Douglas at 7 p.m. Jan. 30.

“We are really trying to keep our focus on the process of getting better between now and regionals.  We know that we have some very tough conference games coming up. In those tough games we want to focus on small victories within the game.  Improving in areas that we have been struggling in no matter what the score may be.  We have to be able to deal with adversity without quitting,” the coach said. 

“We know that we could go winless from here on out and still make the state tournament.  If we can keep our focus on the process of getting better more than the outcome of every game then come regional time we know that we could surprise some teams.  The schedule from now until regionals is going to be brutal, but we are up to the challenge and are going to go out and battle every time we get on the court.”