Running with the Devils proves too much for rival Huskies in boys hoops showdown
Juan Pena/Pena Digital Images/Courtesy photo
A fake ESPN crew showed up for Thursday night’s rivalry game in Gypsum between Battle Mountain and Eagle Valley. If there had been a real highlights package, it would have been full of Dylan Zoller.
The Devils’ silky senior guard drew oohs from the packed student section all night in a 68-43 rout of the Huskies, although he was unable to finish dunks on a couple of alley-oop and putback opportunities.
Zoller finished with a game-high 22 points, going 5-for-6 from the free-throw line and sinking one 3-pointer. The Devils feasted on transition buckets, with Zoller often leading the break or finishing drives. When he wasn’t giving the Huskies fits near the rim, he was dishing to open teammates for easy buckets.
“Always good to beat our rivals. We’ve won the last couple of years, but it always feels good to do it again,” Zoller said. “It’s a good win. Our goal is to win conference this year, so we’re 2-0 in conference right now. We’ll have to keep that going.”
Eagle Valley’s Brian Fontana, Malachi Barros, Parker Newbanks, Tyler Bates, Jonah Medina also contributed in the scoring column, with Fontana hitting two long 3-pointers
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With the win, Eagle Valley improved to 13-4 overall and 2-0 in the 5A Western Slope.
Running with the Devils proved to be too much to handle from the jump for the Huskies, who were down 14-2 before calling a timeout. Junior small forward Beau Suman led the way for the Huskies in the losing effort, finishing with 14 points. Jackson Wansley, Ascher Drummet, Isaac Haggen and Ezequiel Alvarez all scored for Battle Mountain.
“In the beginning, it kind of caught us off-guard,” Suman said. “They’re faster than us, so we struggled. Once we got an understanding of what they were doing, I felt like we were able to turn it around a little bit.”
The rivalry game is always high energy, so we knew they were going to bring some energy,” Devils coach Zach Haglin said. “Our guys were hyped up and ready to go from the tip.”
After running out to a 62-24 lead through three quarters, Zoller and a lot of the Devils starters spent the fourth quarter on the bench, giving reserves some key minutes. The home crowd especially wanted to see the Devils’ Dylan Hauseman in action, chanting “We want Hauseman” between the usual “Warm up the buses” and “You can’t do that” choruses. The junior guard saw extended minutes but was unable to sink either of his shot attempts.
“Always good for them to get experience,” Haglin said. “It’s fun to watch them get after it and bring some energy.”
The Huskies never stopped competing, scoring 19 points in the final quarter with the outcome never in doubt.
“We never gave up,” Suman said. “It was a tough battle and we didn’t expect coming into this that we were going to crush them. All we could was battle, and I think that’s what we did. We all kept going. It doesn’t matter if we were down by 40 or down by 100, we keep going.”
As for Zoller, he was bummed that he couldn’t put down a dunk in front of the home crowd against the Devils’ rivals, but he promised to get it done when the two teams meet again Feb. 20 on the Huskies’ home floor in Edwards.
“I have about 10 or 11 this year,” Zoller said of dunks. “Next game, we got it.”
Battle Mountain, which fell to 3-9 overall and 0-1 in league play, next faces Glenwood Springs on Tuesday at home while the Devils travel to Glenwood Springs on Thursday.
