The Bayfield Wolverines capped off a second comeback win against the Salida Spartans this year, this time on a different playing surface.
Bayfield High School beat the Salida Spartans in the 2A Intermountain League football championship game 22-14 after it trailed 14-0 at halftime. Friday night in Buena Vista’s boys basketball tournament, the Wolverines outscored the Spartans 28-12 in the second half to secure a 50-40 victory. That second-half advantage included an 18-6 fourth quarter for the Wolverines.
Salida (0-3) opened the second quarter on a 20-0 run after Bayfield (3-1) opened with an 18-6 lead after one quarter. The run finally ended with 2 minutes, 5 seconds to go in the first half, as Hayden Farmer hit a 3-pointer and Crosby Edwards made a jump shot. Still, BHS trailed 28-22 at halftime.
“We finally got the stops when we needed to,” said BHS head coach Klint Chandler. “Then we got some looks we needed. That was huge to keep fighting. I’m proud of them.”
Turner Kennedy finished with 15 points to lead the Wolverines. Farmer finished with 12, as did Keegan Owens. Chandler said Owens and Briant Cuellar played strong defense.
“It started with getting defensive stops,” Chandler said. “Then we started moving the basketball a bit. We started trying to force things against that 2-3 zone and weren’t moving the zone at all. We started sharing the ball better and got better shots.”
Bayfield will play one more game at 10 a.m. Saturday in Buena Vista against Middle Park (0-1).
Aztec and Durango showed up with the same color uniforms for Friday’s consolation semifinal game of the Marv Sanders Invitational boys basketball tournament at Farmington High School.
Durango received some help from the tournament-host Scorpions and wore Farmington’s green jerseys for the game on top of their red and white shorts. DHS head coach Alan Batiste said that was the least embarrassing aspect of Friday’s 55-38 loss.
“We had to do what we had to do with the jerseys,” Batiste said. “We were looking at the bracket and thought we were the home team, so we brought our home jerseys. We made a mistake.”
Batiste was unhappy with the team’s offense and equally unhappy to give up 55 points to Aztec (3-2), which was beat 71-27 by Farmington a night earlier.
“Everybody was kind of running their own offense,” Batiste said. “There was no structure. We didn’t really push it, we were just coming down playing. We had no patience. We’d get down five or seven and feel like we had to get it all back at once, take a quick shot and kill momentum and flow. In five games, we haven’t been in a flow on offense unless we’re in the open floor running.”
Batiste said the team urgently needs to get back to playing team ball at 1:30 p.m. Saturday against San Juan High of Blanding, Utah. The Broncos fell to Navajo Prep on Friday in the other consolation semifinal.
“Today was unreal, unacceptable,” Batiste said.
Girls Basketball
Girls BasketballNine players scored for Gunnison, led by Jenna Wise’s 14 points, as the Cowgirls ran past the Bayfield Wolverines 52-24 at the Buena Vista Invitational.
Bayfield (0-2) was led by Maddy Oltmanas’ 11 points. Macee Shultz added five points and Aubree Farmer had four.
The teams were tied at 8-8 after one quarter, but Gunnison built a 24-13 halftime lead and outscored Bayfield 28-11 in the second half.
Maddie Nelson and Kylie Travis each had 10 points for the Cowgirls (2-2).
The Wolverines will look for their first win at 1 p.m. Saturday against Middle Park in Buena Vista.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
