Last weekend’s road trip to Fremont County was a tough one for the Kemmerer High School boys’ basketball team, losing conference matchups to Wyoming Indian 64-60 on Friday and to St. Stephens 79-73 on Saturday.

The losses dropped the Rangers to 6-7 on the season (0-3 in 2A Southwest Quadrant play), with a pair of non-conference games coming up this weekend against Cokeville and Wind River.

“I thought we played pretty well – with the exception of a quarter in each game, where we struggled to take care of the ball, let them build a lead, then had to battle back,” said KHS head coach Matt Stewart. “But overall, I thought we played some of our better overall basketball than we have in a while. The boys battled really hard in both games, we just unfortunately didn’t come out on top.”

The Rangers will look to snap their five-game losing skid Friday at home against 1A Cokeville (7-6); Kemmerer is back on the road Saturday at Wind River (7-6, 2-0 in 2A NW Quadrant).

“We need to work on our on-the-ball defense – we need to step it up on the defensive end,” Stewart said. “We need to work on our rebounding, as well. Those will be some big keys for us this week. Both these teams like to score in bunches, so we need to do our best to stop their runs, and minimize the damage when 

super-pleased with how hard our girls played. Overall, it was just a great team effort.”

Lady Rangers 56, St. Stephens 31

Putting Friday’s loss at Wyoming Indian quickly in their rearview, the Lady Rangers jumped out to a 15-4 lead on St. Stephens (1-8, 0-3 in 2A SW Quadrant) Saturday and never looked back, cruising to a 56-31 win.

“The St. Stephens game was one of those games where you get in and you do things you want to do offensively,” Fiscus said. “We want to be confident in our shooting, and that game was our best offensive output of the season. Everybody got in the game – we got the young kids in and got them some varsity experience. It was good for the girls to cheer each other on, and it was another great team effort.”

After a scoring drought the last few games, sophomore Janae Skidmore got back on track with a double-double, netting 22 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.

“Our scoring has been more balanced, and Janae [Skidmore] took advantage, scoring 22 in that game,” Fiscus said. “She’s been held to single digits for three games, so it was good to see her break out a little bit. I told her during a break not to play so tentative, and she went out and took over the game.”

Tyler Thatcher also scored in double figures, finishing with 12 points, to go along with four steals. Natasha Martinez added eight points, while Sydney Neria and Ella Thatcher chipped in six points and four points, respectively. Hadlee Wood and Sophie Archibald rounded out the scoring with two points apiece.

“Tyler and Natasha and Sydney have really stepped up and increased their offensive production, especially in the face of other teams putting the pressure on Janae,” Fiscus said. “Their confidence is up, so they shoot more, and that translates into a tougher situation for other teams to deal with.”