Mancos Bluejays basketball coach Mike Glover used one word to describe his team's home game last Saturday night.
"Embarrassing."
Hot shooting Telluride came to town and opened up a 16-4 lead, and led comfortably from start to finish.
Mancos couldn't match the Miners' intensity, as the Bluejays fell 62-49.
"They embarrassed us," Glover said. "I feel like we got out-worked, we didn't have senior leadership. I felt like we got embarrassed the entire game."
The game came a couple weeks after the Bluejays (6-5, 2-1 2A San Juan Basin League) triumphed 66-60 at Telluride in overtime. The Miners (7-2, 3-0 2A SJBL) even suffered a heartbreaking setback the night before in a 2-point loss at Dolores.
However, it was Telluride that appeared to have fresh legs and a level head. Mancos, on the other hand, started slow and couldn't dig itself out of the crater-sized hole that was created. The Miners led by as many as 25 points.
"It was just a rough start for us," Mancos guard Brandon Hood-Farley said. "We just need to come back next week and finish our homestand winning games."
Telluride came out firing behind Brooks Rogers and Tristan Purdy, as the Miners built a 16-4 lead after one quarter. Wyatt Cox had both buckets for Mancos in the opening frame.
To start the second quarter, Hood-Farley and Kolton Miller hit back-to-back baskets for Mancos to cut the score in half at 16-8. With the crowd starting to get back in it, Telluride countered with five straight points to increase its lead to 13 at 21-8.
The visitors lead grew to 34-17, before Mancos made it 34-22 at halftime.
What little momentum the Bluejays did have, certainly didn't carry over into the third quarter.
Telluride kept hitting wide open 3 after wide open 3 and built a 56-31 lead early in the fourth quarter.
Cox and Hood-Farley admirably tried to rally the Bluejays back. Mancos out-scored Telluride 20-12 in the final frame, but it was too little, too late.
"Everything we talked about at the start of the game, is the things that we didn't get done," Glover said. "We didn't rebound, we didn't make our free throws, we didn't make our layups - we got embarrassed."
Cox finished with a Mancos team high 15 points, while Hood-Farley chipped in 12.
"We need to limit (the opponent's) offensive rebounds. That's what killed us tonight," Hood-Farley said. "They had four offensive rebounds the first possession and that just kind of set the tone. We can't let that happen."
The Bluejays don't have time to dwell on the past. Mancos stays at home, and steps back into league play with two games Friday and Saturday against Norwood and Ridgway at 7 and 6 p.m.
The Bluejays hosted 3A Bayfield on Tuesday night. Results weren't available at press time.
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