The two best boys’ basketball teams in Class 2-A might be just 20 miles apart in Sheridan County this season. The Shoshoni boys got a taste of that talent on Thursday and Friday in an 86-42 blowout at Tongue River and a 55-28 loss to Big Horn at Shoshoni on Friday.
The Wranglers were slated to play Burns in Douglas on Saturday but the game was rescheduled for Monday due to poor road conditions.
Tongue River is a fast, physical team with good size through the lineup and sports just one loss on the season in a game played earlier at Pavillion in a 70-62 loss to the Cougars.
Big Horn is 10-2 with their only losses to Tongue River and Pine Bluffs.
The Big Horn Rams are the tallest, most physical team in Class 2-A as well, looking the part of the defending Class 2-A football champions.
Shoshoni’s tallest player is 6-1 senior guard, Alex Mills, while the Rams started 6-8 Tobias Schons in the post, and added four more players throughout the game at 6-4.
Despite the huge height difference, Shoshoni played even with the much larger Rams for most of the opening half, trailing by just five at the intermission.
But as the adage goes, “big stays big and quick gets tired.”
That was the case for the Wranglers in the second half. Shoshoni’s leading scorers Trey Fike and Mills had to work extra hard just to get shots off against the towering Big Horn defense and as the game when on, their outside shots began to stray due to fatigue.
Fike paced Shoshoni with 11 and Mills had nine.
Schons did the bulk of the damage scoring 24 points to lead all scorers including a pair of one-step power dunks. He added a dozen blocked shots in an outstanding effort defensively along with an equal number of rebounds.
It doesn’t get much easier for Shoshoni after the road trip to Douglas on Monday.
Block or Player Control? You decide….
They play their longtime Fremont County rival the Wind River Cougars at Pavillion on Friday, then host Rocky Mountain Saturday at 4:30 pm in a pair of Northwest Class 2-A conference games.
Big Horn 9 13 22 11 – 55
Shoshoni 9 8 6 5 – 28
Shoshoni – Alex Mills 2 (1) 2-6 9, Trey Fike 5 1-2 11, Aidan Jarvis (1) 0-0 3, Braxton Mills (1) 0-0 3, Cannon Campbell 1 0-0 2. Totals 8 (3) 3-10 28
Big Horn – Brown 0-2 0, Baker (1) 2-2 5, Butler 2-4 4, Richards 5 2-3 12, Schons 1 0-0 2, Garber 2 (1 ) 0-0 7, Moog 1 0-0 2, T. Schons 10 5-5 25. Totals 19 (2) 11-16 55