It was a weekend split at home for the two Laramie High School basketball teams. They defeated Rawlins, but both lost to Douglas.

The Laramie girls won 60-44 over the Outlaws on Friday night but dropped a 76-40 game to 3A top-ranked Douglas on Saturday.

The Plainsmen had the same fate. They rallied for a 60-49 victory over 3A No. 4 Rawlins on Friday but lost to 3A fifth-ranked Douglas, 43-40, on Saturday.

Laramie Lady Plainsmen

Laramie (5-3) got off to a good start in Friday night’s game. They led by 19, 34-15, by halftime. Rawlins cut the deficit to 11 in the second half, but LHS held off the challenge for the victory.

Three players scored in double figures. The Laramie girls’ were paced by Kylee Cox with 16 points, while Kayla Vasquez scored 15, and Morgan Jensen added 14 points and 12 rebounds.

Saturday was a different story. Douglas jumped all over Laramie with an 18-5 start, and the Lady Plainsmen were never able to recover. They closed within nine points, at 18-9, at the end of the first, but trailed by 20 points at halftime. The lead reached 39 in the second half for the Bearcats.

Cox had 10 points for LHS.

Laramie head coach Nick Darling said after the conclusion of non-conference action that he’s encouraged and happy with where his team is at.

“I passionately feel that we can compete with most of the teams in the state. I’m just excited to get going with conference play, for sure.”

LHS opens conference quadrant action against No. 3 Cheyenne East on Wednesday. Then, they will host No. 4 Cheyenne Central on Friday.

Darling added, “They’re good basketball teams. They play hard, they execute well, and we just have to be disciplined on both ends, and I think we’ll be okay. Again, I think we have a lot of talent on our team, it’s just about making the right reads and being confident with the basketball and playing together.”

The game against East will be played at Storey Gym at 6 p.m.

Laramie Plainsmen

The Plainsmen rallied from an 11-point first-half deficit in their win over the Outlaws. LHS took its first lead of the game on a Trey Enzi layup with 6:21 left in the game. It was part of an 18-0 run by Laramie. They trailed 43-38 and scored the last basket of the third quarter and the first 16 points in the final frame.

Enzi led LHS with a career-high 20 points. Jaedyn Brown added 19 points in the victory.

Another slow start plagued the Plainsmen on Saturday against the Bearcats. Laramie never led in the game and trailed 26-16 at halftime. They cut it to two and three points several times in the second half but couldn’t draw even or take the lead. Douglas made three critical three-pointers in the fourth quarter.

The Plainsmen had a chance to tie on the last possession but a three fell short before the buzzer, and the Bearcats knocked LHS from the ranks of the unbeaten. They are no 7-1 on the season.

Laramie head coach Jim Shaffer knows they’ve played a lot of close games lately.

“We’ve got to stop digging ourselves a hole. We’ve had three where we climbed back in it and won basketball games, and today (Saturday), we couldn’t make enough shots to climb out of the hole. (It’s) pretty frustrating, in terms of, you score 40 points, it’s hard to win a basketball game.”

Laramie will face two of the top 4A boys’ teams in the state to open conference quadrant action with a road game at Cheyenne East and a home game versus Cheyenne Central.

Shaffer added, “When we were playing well earlier, we were much better, in terms of executing half-court offense and making teams have to guard us. Teams have sped us up with the press the last couple of games, and we haven’t been very good about being able to execute half-court offense. We’ve been in a hurry and just struggled, in terms of, what we’re trying to do on the offensive end.”

The Plainsmen play the Thunderbirds at Storey Gym on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.

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