Rally comes up short for Torrington boys

Andrew Towne
Posted 2/17/21

TORRINGTON – Trailing 41-21 early in the fourth quarter, the Torrington High School boys’ basketball team strung together a 17-2 run on Friday to cut the deficit to five, but it proved to be as close as the Blazers came in the final moments of a 51-38 loss to the Douglas Bearcats.

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Rally comes up short for Torrington boys

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TORRINGTON – Trailing 41-21 early in the fourth quarter, the Torrington High School boys’ basketball team strung together a 17-2 run on Friday to cut the deficit to five, but it proved to be as close as the Blazers came in the final moments of a 51-38 loss to the Douglas Bearcats.

“I’m really proud of our guys. We aren’t happy getting beat, but I’m proud of how hard we played. We had guys give tremendous effort tonight,” THS coach Neil Baker said.

Douglas jumped out to a 7-0, and the Bearcats held Torrington scoreless until the 2:18 mark of the opening quarter when senior Aiden Hull drained the first two points of the game.

For the remainder of the half, Torrington kept pace with Douglas, trailing 22-16 at the break.

Coming out of the half, the Bearcats outscored Torrington 14-3 over the next eight minutes.

“We missed some free throws and had some shots not go in for us, but when we played in Douglas, they killed us on the glass,” Baker said. “We took care of that tonight.”

The only Blazer field goal of the quarter came with 5:36 left in the frame courtesy of senior Dylan Dreiling.

A minute into the fourth quarter, the Douglas reached 20 before junior Deagan Keith sparked a late rally.

His bucket sparked the 17-2 spanning until 1:50 was left in the game.

Junior Kieser Wolfe capped off the run with a 3-pointer to cut the Douglas lead to 43-38.

Unfortunately for the Blazers, Torrington’s offense went cold and Douglas scored the final eight points to close out the game.

“We are making strides. It’s hard to see the positive when you get beat, but the kids played hard and did a lot of really good things,” Baker said. “It’s frustrating when the ball won’t go in the hole.”

Wolfe led the Blazers with nine points, while Dreiling added eight. Hull tossed in seven.

“I thought Aiden Hull played with a lot of energy tonight. We are working with him a lot to keep finishing and keep attacking,” Baker said. “I though Thomas Heron did a great job defending on Cameron Spenc who is a really nice player.”

The loss drops Torrington to 3-12 on the season with only three games remaining. The Blazers host Wheatland (5-9) on Friday as the team returns to 3A Southeast Quadrant action to end the regular season. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.

“We are heading in the right direction into the next weekend,” Baker said. “It’s really critical to our seeding for regionals. If we can win both of those, we can greatly improve our seeding for our quadrant.”