The Ranger crowd roared as senior Shane Corpening soared past Chief defenders for an easy two in Saturday's exciting game against Wyoming Indian. GAZETTE PHOTO/Kay Murphy Fatheree

If football is a game of inches, basketball is a game of seconds, or milliseconds if you will. The Kemmerer Rangers learned that the hard way Saturday in their showdown with #1 Wyoming Indian.

The weekend started Friday with Wind River High School facing the Rangers. The Rangers scored the first four points of the game but stalled out at six, allowing the Cougars to catch and then double the Rangers in the first quarter.

It was a couple of minutes into the second quarter before Kemmerer cracked the scoreboard again. By that time the Rangers were thirteen points behind at 19-6.

Sean Wood stole the ball and quickly covered the distance to the basket to give the Rangers eight points. An Eric Robinson basket, a Cody Roberts drive and an assist from Robinson to Roberts later, Shane Corpening capped a ten-point run with another steal, bringing the Rangers within three at 19-16.

After Wind River scored their final basket of the half, AJ Nishi assisted Wood, Robinson made another two and Josh Bird sunk a free throw to send the teams to the locker tied at 21.

Having fought back from the slow start, the second half was all Rangers. They scored first and often, leading by seven at the end of the third quarter and 14 when all was said and done, turning their 21 points at half-time into a 63-49 point win.

Robinson led the Rangers in four categories with 24 points, 11 rebounds, four steals and three assists. Roberts, Corpe-ning and Wood were also in double figures.

That game set the stage for the showdown for first place in 2A southwest. Having knocked off 3A #1 Jackson on Tuesday, The Rangers were hoping to make it two-for-two against top-ranked teams.

The Rangers led for the first two minutes before seeing the lead change five times in the next two minutes. The Wyoming Indian Chiefs finished the quarter on a 10-4 streak to lead by five, 18-13, when the first quarter ended.

They continued to build on that lead throughout the half, leaving the Rangers behind 47-29 with an 18-point mountain to climb.

The bright spot in the first half was Taylor Doherty, who had 14 of his game-high 29 points before the break.

The Rangers entered the third quarter, hoping to cut into that lead and draw close enough to give the Chiefs a run for their money. At quarter’s end, all that had been gained was a single point. A 17-point deficit with eight minutes to go seemed insurmountable.

“Most teams would have quit,” said head Rangers coach Dustin Lym after the game. “We showed our heart.”

There was absolutely no quit in the Rangers, who scored the first six points to cut the lead to 11. Keeping the defensive pressure strong, the Rangers added a 16-5 run to knot the game at 72 points apiece.

A foul and a technical for hitting the floor moved Robinson from three personal fouls to five, putting him out of the game with about two and a half minutes to go.

From that point, the game was nip and tuck. Wood assisted Doherty to take the lead. Chief Slade Spoonhunter tied the game.

Corpening assisted Doherty to put the Rangers back up.

Spoonhunter tied it again.

Lym said the two most costly aspects of the Rangers’ game Saturday were missed free throws and poor rebounding. The final two misses came with half a minute left in the game.

With the score tied at 76, the Chiefs held the ball for a final shot. With good defense, Spoonhunter’s attempt was way right. Unfortunately, the lack of rebounding bit the Rangers here, as Wyoming Indian’s Caleb Her Many Horses took the ball off the glass and put it back in as the clock ticked off its final tenth of a second.

That put-back basket gave the Chiefs the win 78-76 and a one-game lead on the now-second-place Rangers. “We didn’t really know a lot about Wyoming Indian,” Lym said. “We had heard all kinds of things. I told the team we just had to figure out a way to beat them, and I think we did.”

Lym thinks that Saturday’s game will make the Rangers more determined. “We’ll get back to work Monday and get ready for Tuesday’s game in Pinedale,” he said. “We’ve got a chip on our shoulders. We want to go up there and prove we can beat them.”

This week wraps on Friday with a game in Lyman. Neither game counts in the conference race, but each is a pretty good rivalry and should make for a fun week.