Since the turn of the calendar, the 2021-22 high school basketball season made more headlines for the games that weren’t being played than the ones that were. A series of postponements and programs being put on hold have left athletic directors scrambling to arrange schedules that might allow the San Juan Basin and Intermountain Leagues to finish out the campaign.
The resulting flood of rescheduled contests has presented a wild couple of weeks ahead – with lots of excitement in store for southwest Colorado basketball fans.
Brad Wright’s Montezuma-Cortez girls program hasn’t had a game since in almost six weeks, but the 6-2 Panthers have shown the early season promise of a team chomping at the bit to get into 3A IML play. After their initial outing against Centauri was postponed, the Panthers and Falcons (4-6, 0-1 3A IML) will finally do battle on Tuesday, Jan. 25 – the league opener for M-CHS.
Three days later, M-CHS will return to action for their annual trip to the San Luis Valley to face Alamosa, before a rematch against Centauri the following afternoon.
M-CHS boys head coach Mike Hall and his 3-6 Panthers will look to bounce back this week after a tough home loss to Pagosa Springs on Friday night, as they travel to Monticello for a Tuesday night matchup, before joining the girls team on their Friday-Saturday meetings with the Mean Moose and Falcons. Currently, Centauri (10-1) is a top-five team in the 3A classification, although the Falcons suffered their first loss of the season to Pagosa Springs.
Dolores saw both its boys and girls programs go through a brief break from action, but the Bears will get back to the hardwood this week. The boys program, under the guidance of Joel Balderamma, had to wait 12 days after a bitter two-point loss to Telluride before getting back to action on Wednesday, Jan 26. They welcome Colorado Highway 184 rival Mancos to town for an important SJBL clash, with the Bears sitting at 4-4 and 1-1 in league play. Then, the Bears head to Ouray for a Saturday meeting against the Trojans.
On the girls side, however, a jumbled San Juan Basin League has presented all sorts of chaos when it comes to finding opponents. The Ignacio program quarantine nixed their projected contest with Dolores, and Ridgway dropped their varsity program, leaving Tiffany Hill’s varsity squad (3-7, 1-0 SJBL) with no one to play until February.
Mancos’ girls program has run into some of the same challenges as Dolores – a dearth of available league opponents. The Lady Jays (4-4, 1-1 2A/1A SJBL) have proven their ability to hang with some of the best in the 2A classification, so head coach Kerri Morgan’s girls have to be excited to break out of a two-week long hiatus to play Grand County (Thursday) and Dove Creek (Friday) to see if they can shake up the top of the SJBL standings.
Sitting atop the boys standings, Mancos’ boys team has kept their cool through the scheduling jumble, 8-2 overall and perfect in the early stages of league play. They have an opportunity to get a firm grip on the league title chase this week, as they play three games in four days, kicking off Wednesday in Dolores, before returning home for meetings with Dove Creek and Ridgway on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The Dove Creek girls have put themselves in the pole position for a league title on the strength of a league-opening win over Ignacio. However, a lengthy layover between contests will test the mettle of head coach Julie Kibel’s Bulldogs, as they finally return to the floor this week, with a pair of road games – first to Mancos on Friday night, then a trip eastward to face Sierra Grande out of the San Luis Valley. Dove Creek’s girls (11-1, 3-0 2A/1A SJBL) join Mancos’ boys as the two area schools ranked in the top 10 in their respective classification polls.
On the boys side, Dove Creek faces a pair of daunting matchups this week, as they visit league-leading Mancos on Friday, before taking on Sierra Grande – a top five team in the 1A classification – on Saturday. Dove Creek sits 7-5 overall, and among a handful of teams in hot pursuit of the Bluejays for the top spot in the San Juan Basin League.
