The Cougars fell to 0-4 in the Class 2-A Southwest with a pair of conference games remaining before the West 2-A Regional Tournament beginning a week from Thursday at Riverton High School after a 59-45 loss to the Kemmerer Rangers at home Friday night.
It was service night at Wind River with principal Justin Walker auctioning off cakes, cookies, cutting boards, coolers of meat and a blue heeler puppy to raise money for mental health awareness in the Pavillion community.
On the hardwood, the Rangers were effective on drives and in their half-court set. They were even more effective at the free-throw line, where they hit 14 of 15 attempts. The Cougars only managed four of 11 from the stripe.
Kemmerer took an early lead and never relinquished it behind the one-two punch of Cage Bowen and Abram Hartman. Bowen tallied 23 to lead all scorers, including the only miss from the line on seven attempts. Hartman tallied 18.
Wind River couldn’t get the ball inside effectively on their set offense, but managed a few drives off the wing. Their outside shooting was almost non-existent, with Zane David hitting the only 3-pointer for the team. He led the Cougars with 11 points.
Sophomore Tanner Walker had a good floor game, scoring 10 on either layups or shot range pull-up jumpers.
Wind River entertains top-ranked powerhouse Thermopolis on Tuesday, a team that hammered them 71-8 in the Big Horn Basin Classic back in January.
It doesn’t get any easier later in the week when they make the trek to Ethete to play second-ranked Wyoming Indian, the only Class 2-A school to beat Thermopolis.
WIND RIVER 8 9 12 16 – 45
KEMMERER 16 13 18 12 – 59
Wind River – Tanner Walker 4 2-4 10, Jeffrey Strock 4 0-1 8, Zane David 4 (1) 0-0 11, Ford David 2 1-6 5, Hirsch Zickefoose 1 0-0 2, Josh Gallagher 2 0-0 4, Kai Alatini 2 0-0 4. Totals 19 (1) 4-11 45
Kemmerer – Bennett Pollard 1 (1) 0-0 5, Blake Yarber 1 0-0 2, Kane Jimenez 2-2 2, Cage Bowen 7 (1) 6-7 23, Sam Thatcher 3 (1) 3-4 12, Abram Hartman 6 2-2 14. 18 (3) 14-15 59