Sheridan shoots its way past East
Mar. 7—CHEYENNE — Hot shooting from Sheridan was tough for the Cheyenne East boys to overcome Saturday afternoon.
The Broncs made 16 3-pointers on their way to an 89-60 victory over the Thunderbirds in the third-place matchup of the Class 4A East regional tournament.
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"I had no idea they could shoot it as well as they did," East coach Rusty Horsley said. "You've got to give them credit. I was proud of our boys, but they just took us out behind the woodshed and took care of us.
"That's a good team."
East (16-4) started the contest with a little bit of momentum, and held an early 9-5 advantage after McCoy Bush sank a corner 3-pointer with 5 minutes, 21 seconds remaining in the opening quarter. Sheridan rallied back and a Frank Sinclair triple gave Sheridan an 11-8 lead.
The lead changed two more times before Sheridan big man Sam Lecholat finished a jump-hook in the paint for a 16-14 advantage. That was the closest the score was for the remainder of the contest.
Sheridan's length posed problems for the T-Birds whenever they tried to get inside and finish at the rim, especially in the first half. If Sheridan didn't get a hand on the shot, they never failed to contest it.
"Even if they didn't block our shot, getting over them inside was still tough to do," East freshman Drew Jackson said.
Jackson hit a pair of free throws with 4:43 to play in the second quarter to cut East's deficit to 25-16. The Broncs closed out the second half by going on a 21-4 run, which was capped by a Lecholat three-ball at the buzzer to take a 46-20 advantage into the break.
"That's when we kind of missed a few layups and had some things get away from us, and they weren't missing anything," Horsley said.
East came out of the locker room with the same intensity as it did to open the contest and gathered a little bit of momentum, but Sheridan responded by hitting five 3-pointers throughout the quarter.
"They're really disciplined, they play good defense, and they rebound well," Jackson said. "And they just shot it lights out."
Lecholat finished with a game-high 21 points and pulled down 11 rebounds. Sinclair added 18 points for Sheridan. Jake Rayl paced East with 12, Jackson netted 11 and Gavin Goff added nine.
With the win, Sheridan (17-3) earned the third seed out of the East in next week's Class 4A state tournament. The T-Birds will be the No. 4 seed.
East will look to clean up a few things and hopefully get back senior and Class 4A leading scorer Graedyn Buell — who is battling a right ankle injury — in time for next week.
"We're doing a lot of little minor mistakes that are killing us," Horsley said. "We just need to clean those up ... we'll get back to work this week and see what we can do at state."
SHERIDAN 89, EAST 60
Sheridan............................................................ 22 24 24 19 — 89
Cheyenne East.................................................. 14 6 19 21 — 60
Sheridan: Beck 0, Sanders 5, Koltiska 4, Rabon 6, Bateson 9, Dubberley 7, Luedtke 5, Leach 5, Sinclair 18, Lecholat 21, Sanders 9.
Cheyenne East: G. Schalbs 4, Bohlmann 0, Rayl 12, Bush 8, Goff 9, McAnelly 4, Jackson 11, Codner 3, Bishop 7, Jolley 2, Heckman 0.
Robert Munoz is a writer for WyoSports. He can be reached at rmunoz@wyosports.net. Follow him on Twitter @rmunoz307.
