The last leg of the marathon has arrived, and everything still is for the taking.
The Fort Lewis College men’s and women’s basketball teams are set to hit the road for the final two games of the regular season. Big clashes are scheduled across the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, but few teams have as much to gain as the Skyhawks.
The FLC men (19-7-14-6 RMAC) are in danger of having to go on the road in the opening round of the RMAC Shootout tournament despite closing in on a 20-win season. The Skyhawks sit in sixth in the conference standings with the top-four teams earning a first-round home game in the conference tournament next week.
FLC will visit Western State (4-20, 3-17 RMAC) in a winnable game Friday night before getting a chance to square off with fifth-place Colorado Mesa (19-7, 14-6 RMAC) in Grand Junction in the season finale.
The Skyhawks’ men must leapfrog Colorado Mesa and fourth-place CSU-Pueblo (19-7, 15-5 RMAC) to get a home game next week.
“We can’t let Western be a trap game,” FLC head coach Bob Hofman said last Saturday after his team trounced Regis 70-52. “That’s a really hard place to play, not to mention I coached there for five years. It’s a tough gym to play in.
“Mesa means nothing right now, but it will on Friday after 10 o’clock.”
Everything hinges on FLC winning both games this weekend. The Skyhawks also want revenge against Colorado Mesa for a 94-88 home loss to the Mavericks back on Dec. 20. Two of the best big men in all of Division II men’s basketball will once again square off, when FLC’s Alex Herrera meets Colorado Mesa’s Ryan Stephan.
Stephan is the second leading scorer in the conference at 25.4 points per game, with Herrera third at 23.7. Herrera is the top rebounder in the league and seventh in the nation with 11.6 per game. Stephan is second in the RMAC with 8.3 per game.
“I’m really looking forward to that game, but we gotta focus on Friday first. We know both these games are huge,” Herrera said Saturday. “Coming down to Saturday night’s game, it’s a very good matchup. I want it really bad just for a little bit of redemption for what happened here at home.”
The two most-likely scenarios for the FLC men is playing a home game against CSU-Pueblo in the first round of the RMAC Shootout or going on the road to see UC-Colorado Springs (22-4, 16-4 RMAC), who has beat FLC twice already this season. A season split, with the road team winning both games, against CSU-Pueblo has caused a lot of the logjam in the fourth through sixth spots in the conference standings.
FLC will root for CSU-Pueblo to lose Friday at Metro State (22-4, 17-3 RMAC) and to Regis (5-19, 3-17 RMAC) on Saturday.
FLC can take care of matters itself against Colorado Mesa, and it would benefit greatly if Adams State (16-8, 12-8 RMAC) can make matters even more difficult on the Mavericks on Friday night. The Adams State Grizzlies have been as tough as any RMAC team the second half this season.
The race for the RMAC regular season men’s title still is on the line, too. Colorado Mines (22-3, 18-3 RMAC) is the favorite to win at least a share of the title with only one game to play against Colorado Christian (14-13, 11-10 RMAC) on Friday. Metro State (22-4, 17-3 RMAC) is only a half game back in the standings but will host CSU-Pueblo and UC-Colorado Springs in tough home matchups this weekend.
That also makes matters tough on the UC-Colorado Springs Mountain Lions, who would need to beat Regis and Metro State and hope for a Colorado Mines loss to get back into the picture.
Regardless of how things shake up across the RMAC, Herrera is confident the FLC men’s team will do its job and will be satisfied with the result as long as they take care of their own business.
“We all have faith in each other. We had a little slump (two weeks ago) when we dropped a couple of games, but nobody lost faith in each other,” Herrera said. “We’re going to keep fighting for each other and make one last run.”
Women peaking at right time
Three big wins in a row have the FLC women not only in the RMAC Shootout but competing for a home game in the first round.
At 15-9 and 12-8 in the RMAC, the Skyhawks sit in fifth place in the standings and only one game out of third heading into the final weekend.
FLC will look to get past Western State (4-20, 3-17 RMAC) and Colorado Mesa (20-4, 17-3 RMAC) in two big road games to close out the regular season.
Meanwhile, they’ll root for CSU-Pueblo (15-9, 13-7 RMAC) and Colorado Christian (14-13, 14-7 RMAC) to lose this weekend.
FLC has the best shot of getting in front of CSU-Pueblo, who has two tough games this weekend against Regis (15-9, 11-9 RMAC) and Metro State (13-11, 10-10 RMAC), who both are fighting for two of the final three spots in the conference tournament. Western New Mexico (13-12, 10-11 RMAC) is the only team outside the top eight that could get back into the conference tournament if Metro State or Regis struggle.
FLC already owns a 74-67 home win against Western State this season but lost 52-50 to Colorado Mesa on Dec. 20. The Skyhawks will have a tough time against Colorado Mesa, which hasn’t lost a home game since Jan. 28, 2012, a stretch of 49 consecutive games. The Mavericks never have lost a home game in head coach Taylor Wagner’s three years coaching the team.
FLC head coach Jason Flores, like Hofman, won’t let his team look past Western State first.
“Western is a tough place to play. We didn’t have a great focus to us the first time we played them, and we had to dig out of a big hole. Hopefully we learned from that and we go in there pretty razor sharp, because Saturday’s game doesn’t mean anything if we drop Friday’s game,” Flores said. “Saturday’s game is easy to get up for because the crowd is great there, good team. I think we match up.”
FLC also could play a spoiler role against the Mavericks, who are first in the RMAC standings going into the weekend. A loss would allow second-place UC-Colorado Springs back into the picture.
Regardless of how the conference landscape shakes up this weekend, Flores knows his team has found a style of play that can help them beat anybody come RMAC Shootout time, even if they have to go on the road.
“We’re going to be a tough out at some point,” he said. “We’re right there, and I think we can play with anybody. We’re becoming a really good team.
“From where we started to where we’re at now, we’re better, we’re more confident. We’ have a lot of players make good improvements. We go into any game now and I’m thinking we’re going to win.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
