Opening league play against an opponent such as the Alamosa Mean Moose will always bring excitement to Bayfield, and excitement is what ensued Friday night.
All of the excitement, however, came from Alamosa’s (7-5, 1-0 3A Intermountain League) end as Bayfield (2-6, 0-1 IML) couldn’t overcome a slow third quarter nor could it stop Alamosa junior Ryan Brubacher, who led the Mean Moose with 19 points in a 64-40 win.
“This feels good, we always know that Bayfield is a really strong competitive team,” Alamosa head coach Brenden Brubacher said. “It’s really hard to win in Bayfield. To open up the Intermountain with a win, you couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Brubacher’s smooth touch opened up for 12 points in the third quarter as Alamosa ran away with the game. At halftime, the Mean Moose held a 28-21 lead, but Alamosa stretched its lead to 54-25 by the end of the third quarter.
“He found himself open in the high post and hit a couple of shots in and started feeling it more,” coach Brubacher said. “He’s been our leading scorer all year, so we expect that from him.”
Leading Bayfield was senior Taed Heydinger, who put in 12 points and totaled two assists. Alamosa was able to hold both Ryan and Zane Phelps to single-digit scoring. Ryan Phelps had six points and six rebounds. Zane Phelps had seven points and seven rebounds. Despite not being able to put points on the board, Bayfield outrebounded Alamosa 33-28.
“We just have to be aggressive, and we weren’t (Friday night),” said Heydinger, son of Tim and Chris Heydinger. “We were tense from the start. We knew we were off. (Alamosa) got in our heads and we can’t let that happen. This is our first league game, we’ll get better.”
Bayfield is a young team with only four seniors and will look at Friday as a learning experience.
“We’re so young and inexperienced,” BHS head coach Jeff Lehnus said. “They need to obtain the right focus on adversity within themselves and within the team. We’re still a work in progress.”
Bayfield’s jitters of playing against a traditional basketball powerhouse such as Alamosa was obvious.
“They got the better of us,” Lehnus said. “Things snowballed. The turnovers didn’t stop.”
Lehnus added that he felt that his team rallied near the end of the fourth quarter which gave the head coach reason for optimism.
“We began to settle down a little and started to execute,” he said. “We can play better. We were exposed to a good team. We have to take one game at a time.”
Bayfield will have a chance to shrug off its loss by taking on Navajo Prep at 7 p.m. Saturday at Bayfield High School.
jmentzer@durangoherald.com
