The Dolores Bears (3-9) lost another heart-breaker on Friday night at Ridgway (8-2).
After suffering one-point losses to Sangre de Cristo and Telluride earlier in the season, the Bears fell in overtime to Ridgway, 50-49.
“It was a heck of a game,” Dolores head coach Larry Schwartz said in a phone interview on Monday. “Both teams battled it out and it went back-and-forth all four quarters.”
The Bears trailed 28-20 at halftime, but senior Ben Lykins hit a three-quarter-court shot at the buzzer to bring Dolores within three at the end the third quarter.
“That put us down by three,” said Schwartz. “But it was a big momentum change.”
The fourth quarter was a back-and-fourth contest, and Lykins came up big again.
With Dolores down by three points and less than five seconds to play, Lykins came off a double screen and caught a pass from Justin Purkat and then knocked down a step-back 3-pointer from the corner over two Ridgway defenders to send the game into overtime.
“He was on fire all four quarters,” Schwartz said of Lykins. “They finally started to double-team him and triple-team him. His performance was just incredible. He hit big shot after big shot.”
Lykins led the Bears with 32 points, and Jalen Balderrama scored nine, but the Demons outscored Dolores 5-4 in the extra period to claim the 50-49 win.
The Bears avenged their Friday evening loss by beating up on the Nucla Mustangs (2-6) on Saturday.
Dolores led by 10 after the first quarter before turning to its bench in the second.
“The starting five was just exhausted from the overtime game,” Schwartz said. “So we went to our bench and that broke it open in the second quarter.”
The Bears’ second-unit helped build a 36-11 lead at half, and they would go on to win 75-34.
Tristen Medina led the Bears in scoring, dropping in all of his game-high 16 points in the final quarter. Lykins scored 13 points for Dolores and Branden Donaldson and Purkat each scored 12.
Next up, the Bears will travel to Mancos (3-7) in a rivalry game against the Blue Jays on Tuesday.
“Big rivalry game tomorrow night,” Schwartz said on Monday. “We’re just going to go in and give it everything we’ve got and we’ll see what happens.”
