Even though the Bear Creek Bears scored an imposing 60 points on Saturday, the Ponderosa Mustangs still came out on top. Ponderosa walked away with a 69-60 win over Bear Creek. Given Ponderosa's advantage in MaxPreps' Colorado basketball rankings (they are ranked 15th, while Bear Creek is ranked 130th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Ponderosa got their victory on the backs of several key players, but it was Noah Wilhelm out in front who scored 25 points along with seven rebounds and three steals. That makes it three consecutive games in which Wilhelm has scored at least 25% of Ponderosa's points. Another player making a difference was Carson Keach, who scored 19 points along with seven assists.
Bear Creek lost despite a true team effort on the offense, the best among them being Elias Pacheco, who scored nine points along with five rebounds. As a matter of fact, that's the most points Pacheco has scored all season. Alen Avdic was another key contributor, scoring ten points along with seven rebounds and three steals.
Ponderosa now has a winning record of 2-1. As for Bear Creek, they are on a three-game losing streak that has dropped them down to 1-3.
Ponderosa will look to defend their home court on Thursday against Pueblo East at 7:00 p.m. Hopefully Pueblo East focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 18 on Tuesday. Bear Creek and Westminster will face off at 7:00 p.m. on December 6th without much rest after finishing up games yesterday. Westminster has been getting the ball to fall more lately as they've increased their point totals each of their last three games.
