With only this weekend’s San Juan Basin League games remaining on the regular-season schedule, it is hard to believe that almost every contest is crucial for the area Class 2A teams.

Here is the schedule: Dolores boys and girls host Nucla Friday evening, Feb. 16, and then visit Mancos Saturday afternoon, Feb. 17. Mancos visits Telluride Friday night. Dolores County, which is coming off a makeup game at Telluride it played Tuesday night, Feb. 13, will visit Norwood Friday and then host Telluride (at Dolores High School) on Saturday.

To call the varsity boys basketball game at Telluride this Friday, a big one is a small understatement. A win will give Mancos High School the no. 2 seed at the District III Basketball Tournament Feb. 23-24 at Montezuma-Cortez High School. And another big game is possibly looming on Saturday as well when the Jays host the Bears.

The Blue Jays are coming off a split of games this past weekend, Feb. 9-10. They fell at home to San Juan Basin League leader Nucla 58-49 but bounced back to beat Norwood on the road 72-60.

The MHS girls swept Nucla 41-33 at home and then beat Norwood 44-26 on the road.

"I was extremely happy with our play against Nucla," MHS head boys coach Gary Hill reported. "We got into foul trouble and we were playing with three starters on the bench in the second half. When Jesse Rousset only scores four and Bill Baker just two, ithard for us to play well. But our bench played very well and kept us even in the second half."

Mancos led Nucla 13-12 at the end of the first quarter but Nucla outscored Mancos 19-9 in the second period. The Mustangs led 42-21 at the intermission. Nucla scored 27 and Mancos also scored 27 points in the second half.

Chris Robuck led the Mustangs with 16 while Sean Ficklin dropped in 12 and Mike Epright and Chris Bean 10 apiece. Travis Clark paced Mancos with 13, Kelley Smith added 12, and Clint Hill, Kyle Yeomans, and Ryan Shepherd had six each.

"Again, I was very impressed with our bench play. They just did a fantastic job for us. Chase Davis played a very good game and is coming on," Hill added.

The Blue Jays played an excellent game on the road at Norwood on Saturday. They started off a little slow, trailing 15-13 but bounced back to tie the game at 29 at the half. Mancos barely outscored Norwood 21-19 in the third period but Mancos manhandled Norwood in the fourth, outscoring the Mavericks 22-12.

Clark led the Jays with 17, Baker added 16 (despite fouling out early in the fourth), Smith 13, and Rousset 12. Ben Waddell was high-point man for the game with 25 while Jamie Spor added 14.

"Our turnover ratio is going down. We are taking care of the basketball much better. I was just real happy with the kids the way they bounced back from losing the night before," Hill said.

The Blue Jay girls also face a big game at Telluride on Friday.

"If we can win, it would put us on the 2-3 (seed) side for districts but a loss would put us on the pigtail side," MHS girls head coach Kevin Dimmick remarked.

Against Nucla, the Jays started off slowly (at least as recorded on the scoreboard), trailing 10-4. However, the defensive effort was outstanding and that opened up the offense in the second quarter. Mancos led 16-14 at the half. The game was played about evenly in the second half with Mancos outscoring Nucla 25-21.

"Actually, I thought we played evenly in the first period. We had plenty of chances we just couldn’t hit. We started playing better defense in the second quarter. We also executed our offense better," he added.

Kerri Morgan led the Jays with 18 points and Amanda Kennedy added eight. Chelsey Boss paced Nucla with eight.

The Jays played very steadily on Saturday at Norwood. Mancos led 12-6 at the end of the first quarter and 20-13 at the break. The Jays poured it on offensively in the second half, outscoring Norwood 24-13. But it was the defense which set up the offense.

Morgan popped in 19 while Katie Paxton added 11. Cassidy Haught led Norwood with 12.

"We played very good defense all the way through. We made some adjustments (to stop Haught) and they executed them very well. We extended our press and they had trouble adjusting," Dimmick said.

Dolores girls right now are cruising along with a perfect 17-0 overall record after picking up two more easy wins against Dolores County 77-19 and Telluride 65-33. The Bears have already clinched the regular-season SJBL title (8-0) and the all-important no. 1 seed for the District III Tournament next week.

Jennifer Trevillian recorded a rare (at high school level) triple double by scoring 22 points, making 10 steals and dishing out 10 assists in leading Dolores over Dolores County on Friday night in a game played at Cortez Middle School Gym. Teammate Tracy Everett had a double double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. McKenzie Reed scored nine and grabbed five rebounds.

Dolores jumped all over the Bulldogs 23-1 in the first period. The Bears outscored DCHS 13-2 in the second half. They toyed with the Bulldogs in the second half, outscoring them 41-17 as DHS head coach Rob Mellott freely substituted.

The Bears led 19-6 after one period and 29-17 at the break at Telluride. They limited the Miners to only four points in the third quarter (17-4) while outscoring the Miners 19-12 in the fourth.

Joni Everett recorded a double double with 10 rebounds and 12 points for DHS. Trevillian popped in 13 while Amber Simmons and Tracy Everett added 11 each.

The Dolores boys are right in the thick of the race and trying to avoid playing a pigtail game early next week. However, they didn’t get very good news in their game against Dove Creek as senior Cody Beaver suffered a compound fracture in his left arm and is out for the season. The Bears also lost the game 62-61.

Dolores County led 13-8 at the end of the first period. The game was tied at 19-all in the second when Beaver went down. From that point on, the Bulldogs took the lead and never gave it up, although it tightened at the end. Dove Creek led 24-22 at the half. Dolores outscored DCHS 31-28 in the second half.

Justin Schmitt scored 18, Kevin Fane 17, and Cullen Zion 13 for DHS. Dallas Coker paced the Bulldogs with 14, Keith Pierce added 12, and Chris Kail and Bru Meyer 11 apiece.

"I think losing Beaver certainly was an emotional loss. Dolores never play the same after that," DCHS coach Scott Crawford commented. "The key in the game is that we played well underneath. We got the ball inside. It was a neck-and-neck game."

"This was a very tough night for us," DHS head coach Todd Wynne remarked. "We lost Cody in the second quarter. We didn’t shoot very well from the free throw line (18-28) and missing some 13 footers. Dove Creek is playing a lot better basketball right now."

The Dolores boys came back to crushed Telluride 94-48 on Saturday. The Bears gunned in 32 points in the first period alone and then continued their torrid scoring by dumping in 18 in the second, 20 in the third and 24 in the fourth. They stepped up their defensive play, limiting the Miners to 10 in the first, 11 in the second, 15 in the third, and 12 in the fourth.

Zion led the way with 27 points and seven rebounds. Schmitt made 19 points and also grabbed seven boards.

"The team felt they needed to redeem themselves after Friday’s loss. Indeed, they did! Everyone on the team had at least three rebounds as well as score in the books. We now need to focus on the tough coming competition," Wynne said.

Dolores County boys fell to league-leading Nucla 69-39 on Saturday. The Mustangs jumped out to a 14-4 lead after the first quarter and never looked back. They outscored the Bulldogs 19-13 in the second, 22-9 in the third and 14-13 in the fourth.

Kail canned five three-pointers for 15 points while Pierce tossed in 13. Chris Robuck led Nucla with 18 and Michael Epright added 16.