Cowboys Miss Out On District Tournament

The 1A Rocky Mountain Conference has eleven total teams in it.  With so many teams in the conference they have made the decision to have the six bottom teams participate in play-in games to just qualify for the district tournament.  This has been the protocol for several years.  Teams that don’t find themselves in the top five at the end of the season have to face the possibility of going one and done in the play-in games.  This is the position that the North Gem boys basketball team found themselves in last week.  After a long season that saw the Cowboys struggle to pick up wins North Gem finished as the tenth seeded team.  This matched them up with the seventh seeded Vikings from Challis.  With the high seed playing host the Cowboys had to make the long trip to Custer County where they would need to secure a win to extend their season.  In their lone regular season match-up, which was also in Challis, the Vikings blew out the Cowboys.  

North Gem knew they faced an uphill battle in this game but they came ready to face the challenge head on.  The Vikings held the advantage in height over the Cowboys but that did not slow down the no fear attitude of the Cowboys team leader Craig Yost.  Yost repeatedly attacked the heart of the Vikings defense, putting in layups and earning trips to the foul line.  By the end of the first quarter the Cowboys were hanging tough with the Vikings but did trail by five.  Yost deserved much of the credit as he scored nine of the team’s eleven points in the opening period.  In the second quarter of action the Vikings would create a little more space and really try to limit Yost’s impact on the game.  That is when the Cowboy’s Wakely stepped in and began to contribute.  Wakely added seven points of his own in the second and at the halftime break the Cowboys now trailed by eight.  The game was not out of reach yet and as the second half began North Gem looked primed to make a run.  In the first half of the third quarter the Cowboys outscored the Vikings five to three and had the lead down to just six.  That is when the wheels fell off for the Cowboys.  The Vikings finished the third quarter on an eighteen to zero run and never looked back.  In the fourth quarter the Cowboys could not get the offense going again.  Yost eventually fouled out of the game and the Vikings pulled away winning by a large margin.  

North Gem’s season may have come to a premature end but the Cowboys will do what cowboys always do.  They will pick themselves up, dust themselves off and ride again next season.  They will be without some great senior leaders that are set to graduate but will return a solid group of players ready to prove themselves and leave their mark on North Gem High School. 

Cowboys 11 13 5 1 30

Vikings 16 16 21 17 70

C. Yost 17, W. Wakely 11, C. Johnson 1, J. Perry 1