If their offense was as good as their defense, it would have been a much closer contest.
The Sierra Stallions blazed past the Cañon City Tigers, 48-27, on Saturday afternoon in the Tiger Dome.
The loss moves the Tigers a bit further from their goal of a top-three finish in the Colorado Springs Metro League. They now are 4-13 overall and are 3-5 in league play. The eighth-ranked Stallions improved to 14-3 overall and 8-0 in league.
“I thought everyone played really well. I thought defensively we did a nice job,” Tigers coach Greg Baxter said. “We held them to just 48 points, and it was a good team effort defensively.”
The Tigers particularly were good on the glass with 24 defensive rebounds.
Cañon City started off strong and only trailed by one point at the end of the first period.
But by halftime, the Stallions substantially had widened their lead. They scored 16 in the second period, while the Tigers struggled and had 5. Nine points were put up by Sierra during the third period, while Cañon City had 4. The fourth was similar: the Tigers gave up 10, while the Stallions allowed 6.
“We need to continue to get better on offense so we can make some of these easy shots,” Baxter said.
Senior Andrew Berger and junior Dante Teigan led the Tigers with eight points each. Senior Jared Mews scored 3, and multiple players got 2.
The Tigers also had a difficult time with turnovers. Cañon City had 16; Sierra only committed one.
“Their defense is just so in your face and they pressure you so well that they force you to do bad things and when they force you to do bad things, they capitalize off those turnovers and that’s how they ended up growing that lead and it got bigger and bigger and bigger,” Mews said. “They are a good defensive team.”
Despite the loss, Baxter is optimistic about the rest of the season.
“We continue to get better,” he said. “We have six more games. We are going to try to win every one of them.”
The game originally was scheduled for Jan. 22 but was postponed because of poor weather and bad driving conditions.
The Tigers’ next game will be Tuesday when they host Mesa Ridge (9-8, 5-3).
