<\/p>\n
After falling behind early, the Dolores Bears (3-12) were unable to mount a comeback against the Telluride Miners (6-8) on Friday night.<\/p>\n
The Miners jumped out to a 13-6 first-quarter advantage, and then started the second on an 11-2 run to lead 24-8 midway through.<\/p>\n
The Bears struggled against the Miners\u2019 full-court pressure, and their deep, errant passes turned into Telluride scores on the other end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to call a timeout because our guys were forgetting to cut to the middle,\u201d head coach Larry Schwartz said after the game. \u201cEven when we\u2019re running our three-high play, they\u2019ve still got to cut to the middle. And when you don\u2019t then they\u2019ve got us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, midway through the second and trailing by 16, the Bears made a push.<\/p>\n
Jalen Balderrama hit two free throws and then senior Branden Donaldson was able to leak out after Telluride shot attempts and score in transition. Donaldson scored the Bears\u2019 next seven points to trim the Miners\u2019 lead to single-digits.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so fast,\u201d said Schwartz. \u201cThat\u2019s Donaldson\u2019s game. When he\u2019s playing like that it\u2019s crazy. He leaks out really well, and so does [Tristen] Medina now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Telluride closed the second on a 4-0 run and went into the half with a 30-18 lead, but Schwartz challenged his players at half time.<\/p>\n
The Bears were without leading scorer Ben Lykins \u2013 who suffered a concussion in Dolores\u2019 previous game against Ignacio \u2013 so other players would need to step up to replace his 16 points-per-game average.<\/p>\n
\u201cI challenged the guys at halftime, \u2018You guys have got to step up and become scorers,\u2019\u201d said Schwartz. \u201cAnd I thought [Justin] Purkat stepped up to the plate, [Josh] McCoy finally got his shots to go, Medina is a great ball handler and Jalen [Balderrama] is a good slasher.\u201d<\/p>\n
Purkat knocked down a 3-pointer early in the third quarter, and then later scooped up a loose ball and went the length of the court to pull the Bears within five points, 33-28. But Telluride responded with a run of its own and stretched the gap back to 11 to end the quarter.<\/p>\n
Dolores strung together another run in the fourth to get within seven points, but it seemed that Telluride always answered, and the Miners went on to win, 57-48.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seemed like that,\u201d Schwartz said of the Miners\u2019 responding to each Dolores run. \u201cIt seems like that with every team. So it comes down to, my guys have got to get that confidence and believe in themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we can hang with every team in the league,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of, we\u2019ve got to be able to finish a game, learn how to win a tough one, and maybe that will help us in districts. That\u2019s what we\u2019re hoping.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balderrama led the Bears with 12 points and Purkat scored 10 in what Schwartz referred to as, \u201cBy far his best outing of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donaldson finished with nine points, McCoy added eight, Kyle Biery scored six and Medina chipped in four.<\/p>\n
The Bears next game is on Friday at Ouray (11-2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
respond to Bears\u2019 comeback attempts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[44],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-dolores"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106794"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}