{"id":71636,"date":"2017-02-20T03:26:11","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T10:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-bears-turn-back-energized-mancos-blue-jays\/"},"modified":"2017-02-20T10:26:11","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T10:26:11","slug":"dolores-bears-turn-back-energized-mancos-blue-jays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-bears-turn-back-energized-mancos-blue-jays\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores Bears turn back energized Mancos Blue Jays"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dolores
Dolores sophomore Dakota Smith collects himself before scoring a layup over Mancos freshman Caden Showalter at the Mancos Performance Center on Friday, Feb. 17.<\/span>Ian MacLaren\/For The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Editor\u2019s note: This story was corrected to reflect that the Mancos-Dolores game is at 6 p.m., Feb. 21 in Dolores.<\/em><\/p>\n

Playing in front of a loud and boisterous crowd at the Mancos Performance Center on Feb. 17, the Dolores boys basketball team survived an upset bid by Mancos and walked away with a 63-57 victory.<\/p>\n

Crucial for the Bears was the ability to weather an early storm that saw the Blue Jays seize a 14-5 lead midway through the first quarter thanks to tough man-to-man defense and eight early points from junior Caleb Yoder.<\/p>\n

Mancos\u2019 lead grew to 24-14 later in the first half thanks to six second-quarter points from freshman Caden Showalter, who fought through consistent double-teams and scored three easy buckets near the low block.<\/p>\n

Dolores weathered the early storm however, and after a slicing layup by senior Tristan Medina off a pass from Swaggerty and four straight points from Smith, Dolores tied the game, 26-26 with less than a minute left in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

A driving layup by Medina with 10 seconds left in the first half put Dolores ahead 28-26 and after the game, Dolores head coach Larry Schwartz commended his team for fighting back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a hostile environment, and (Mancos) came out ready to play,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cThere was a lot of blue in the stands and it was a great rivalry night. I\u2019m really proud of my boys. They hung in there and persevered.\u201d<\/p>\n

With both teams looking to gain momentum after the halftime intermission, Yoder and Medina reminded fans of the intensity of the Mancos-Dolores rivalry during an entertaining sequence that featured the sharpshooting guards exchanging three-point buckets and barbs.<\/p>\n

After Yoder pushed Medina to the floor with his right, drained a long three and held his hand in the air while back peddling down the court, Medina drove the length of the court and drilled a three of his own with Yoder looking on.<\/p>\n

Immediately after sinking the shot, the Dolores senior turned to Mancos fans and pressed his finger to his lips as if to remind everyone that Bears would not be going away anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Three-pointers by junior Justin Purkat and junior Christopher Rudosky later in the third quarter put Dolores ahead 46-36 before a 5-1 run by Mancos cut the Dolores lead to 47-42 entering the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays would pull even closer when a three-pointer by freshman Nic Baikie cut the Dolores lead to 53-51, but an 8-0 run Bears\u2019 run following the Mancos bucket all but sealed the Blue Jays fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played hard the whole game, no doubt about it,\u201d said Mancos head coach Ed Aiken. \u201cWe had our moments where things didn\u2019t go our way and we made some errors, but we played well throughout. We just came up short.\u201d<\/p>\n

Showalter and Yoder led the Blue Jays in scoring with 18 points each, while Swaggerty and Smith scored 17 points each to lead Dolores.<\/p>\n

Now finished with their regular seasons, Mancos (6-13 overall, 3-9 in SJBL) and Dolores (11-8 overall, 7-5 in SJBL) will face off in the pigtail game of the Class 2A District 1 Tournament in Dolores on Feb. 21. The game will begin at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely encourage everyone to come and watch,\u201d Medina said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to play for the right to go to Districts. If we win, it will be the first time in a long time that (Dolores) has been to Districts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to make some noise,\u201d said Aiken, when asked about his team\u2019s goals for the postseason. \u201cOur goal is to make our presence felt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores overcomes early deficit to defeat Mancos in San Juan Basin League rivalry game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,38,37,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71636","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=71636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71636"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}