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The Mustangs huddle up to go over an inbounds play in the third quarter. During the time out, Brooklyn Mack (12) showed love for her teammates Amanda Nagel (12) and Courtney Brown (10).

Manitou Springs High School’s (MSHS) Girls’ Varsity Basketball team traveled to district tournaments at Pueblo Central last Friday, Feb, 23rd. JV ended the week, before but varsity continued on, beating James Irwin for their last regular season game. To determine placing for the district tournament, the varsity girls played Salida on a Tuesday night but lost 39-32. This defeat put them competing for fifth place in Pueblo this weekend. Their first game was against the Florence Huskies. Their win of 50-38 put them up against Buena Vista, who beat the Mustangs’ previous opponent: Salida. The girls had defeated Buena Vista in their regular season by nine, but this district game turned out much too close for comfort.

Manitou was down by six points at the end of the first half, but by the third quarter they had increased their lead to be neck and neck. Caileen Sienknecht (11) and Maren Mildestvedt (12), the leading scores of the game, took charge and scored enough points to tie the game at 44-44 by the final minute of the fourth quarter. In the last five seconds, a Buena Vista player took two lay-up shots and missed both of them right before the buzzer went off. Had she made them, the Mustangs would have lost. However, the game continued in four minutes of overtime, where Manitou scored 16 points to win the game 60-50.

The girls will take their victory and push themselves in practice as they prepare for the game against Faith Christian on Friday night for the first game of the regional tournament. If they win, they will progress through regionals and hopefully make it to State.