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Meghann Root

Cole Sienknecht(10) looks to drive against the Lions. This occurred at the beginning of the third quarter.

On Monday, February 15, the Mustangs faced off against their league rivals, the Colorado Springs Christian School (CSCS) Lions. The game resulted in a Lions victory and Tri-Peaks League title.

The defensive plan for the Mustangs was to isolate Sam Howard (12) and Justin Engesser (11), only allowing some shots to be taken by the other three starters for the Lions. This strategy worked well for the Mustangs during the first quarter. At the end of the first, the Mustangs were leading 18-12. This lead did not last long though, as the Lions went for a big run at the start of the second quarter.

By halftime the Mustang lead had been overtaken by CSCS. There was much game left to be played though as the score was only 29-25.

Manitou stuck to their game plan and continued to fight in the third and fourth quarters but a few little mistakes were made which resulted in turnovers and easy layups for the Lions. This let the Lions start another run which allowed them to play better defense and stop some of the Mustangs key players from making shots that would not normally be missed.

By the time the Lions had wasted a good amount of time on the clock and the fourth quarter had ended it had shown that many of the Mustangs key scorers had accounted for very few points. The lead scorer for the mustangs was Jared Keul (11), who scored eleven points throughout the game. Key player Lucas Rodholm (11) only made six of the Mustangs’ points. The Lions’ big scorer was Sam Howard (12), with 16 points.

The Mustangs are now ranked 7th in the state for 3A Boys’ Varsity Basketball.