Tigers continue District struggle in pair of losses
By Melissa McCaghren
Slatonite GM
The Slaton Tigers were handed a couple of losses this past week in District play, losing 60-65 to the Tulia Hornets Jan. 5 and then Childress Bobcats 36-64 Jan. 8.
In spite of these struggles, Head Coach Stacy Godfrey saw some positives in both games.
“We really shot well from the floor (against Tulia) and had four players in double digits, with (Treven) Baker pouring in 15 points and (Ayden) Ramirez, (Camryn)Nalley and (Hudson) Sackett each scoring 12 a piece, in any other game that’s a win in my opinion,” he said.
“On the other hand Tulia’s (Travon) McCaslin scored a career high of 33 points with a big second quarter showing of 15 points.
“Again finishing games is where we are struggling only scoring nine in the fourth.”
Top Slaton scorer in the Tulia game was Baker with 15 points. Also scoring were Sackett, Ramirez and Nalley with 12 points each, Braeden Gibbs with five points and Evan Lopez and Travazien Samuels with two each.
Godfrey said the team played a fundamentally sound game with Childress.
“They were very aggressive on both ends of the floor allowing them to score 30 points off of our 30 turnovers in transition. Turnovers was big issue in this game,” he added.
“This was actually one of our better shooting percentage games this year, shooting 56.6 percent from the field, 50 percent free throws and 25 rebounds, but the 30 turnovers was the main factor in this loss.”
Top scorer was Gibbs with 14 points. Also scoring were Sackett and Ramirez with seven each, Nalley with six and Lopez with two.
The team played the Shallowater Mustangs Tuesday evening (Jan. 12). The team will play Idalou Friday (Jan. 15) at home.
“Shallowater (is) another very fundamentally sound team and will be very aggressive. I believe if we take care of the ball on our end we could very well be in this game and Friday (when) we host Idalou,” he said.
Until then, it’s more practice to try and vie for one of the four spots available for the playoffs.
“We are really focusing on taking care of the ball, right now that’s where we are struggling,” he said.
Scores will be reported in next week’s edition.
