Cherokee Trail Handles Mullen

By Matt Langley

www.BasketballColorado.com

1/16/2015

Aurora, CO –  For a quarter it looked like the Mullen Mustangs would be able to hang with the Cherokee Trail Cougars Friday night at Cherokee Trail High School. The Mustangs used an extend zone defense to slow down the more athletic Cougars in the Centennial League game. However, the Cougars managed the zone with patience and managed to turnover the Mustangs multiple times for transition baskets. The Mustangs meanwhile were simply unable to score outside of their leading scorer junior wing Nathan Davis. The Mustangs looked robotic at times in their offense and had trouble finding shots they were willing to take. Granted with defenders like the Cougars have in senior Izaiah Lottie and juniors Ronnie Barfield and David Thornton its never easy to score. The Cougars lead at halftime 33-18.

The second half was a tale of two quarters. The third quarter was all Cougars again. Sophomore guard KJ Sapp drained two three pointers and helped push the Cougars lead to as much as 23 points in the quarter. The Mustangs again struggled to score as Davis had two of the Mustangs four field goals in the quarter. The Cougars lead stood at 22 points at the end of the 3rd quarter 50-28. In the fourth quarter Davis started to assert himself and scored 9 points in less than a minute, five of those points came off of free throws. Two of the free throws came from a technical foul that was given to the Cougars after Davis was fouled shooting. The Mustangs continued to shrink the lead when the Cougars were unable to hit free throws. For the game, the Cougars shot 5-13 from the free throw line an went 0-4 in the the fourth quarter. They also missed lay ups and had uncharacteristic turnovers in the final quarter that did not occur earlier in the game. Down 13 points with 3:40 the Mustangs were unable to string together any more stops to make a serious run at the Cougars. As the pace of the game sped up in the final minutes that opened the lanes for Thornton and Barfield to score at the rim along with senior Drequez Harvey.  The Cougars won 64-53.

Double Digit Scorers

Mullen

Davis 21 points and at least 10 rebounds

Cherokee Trail

J. Lottie 11

Sapp 13

Thornton 13