Second-half slide sinks Pioneers

The rematch of a game that went down to the wire for the Big Sandy boys' basketballers again provided plenty of excitement late.

Unfortunately, a Pioneer team that shot out to a 31-16 lead at halftime had no interest in such second-half heroics and fell again to nonleague foe Denton-Geyser-Stanford in frustrating fashion.

DGS previously defeated the Pioneers 64-61 on Jan. 3 in Big Sandy.

Defensively, Big Sandy felt the business end of a pointed comeback effort as the host Bearcats roared back with 51 second-half points to claim a 67-59 win.

Kein Carpenter scored 18 of his 21 points on the back half of the contest to lead DGS, the MaxPreps No. 9 team in Class C.

Senior Ryan Roth led all scorers with 24 points for Big Sandy.

Almost the entire final margin could be calculated from free-throw shooting. DGS converted 18-of-29 from the line while Big Sandy shot 11-of-14, taking better advantage of what amounted to less than half the opportunities.

It would get no easier as the Pioneers (7-6) were slated to host No. 1-ranked Fort Benton Monday after press time. Road closures brought on by high winds, dust and debris from a wildfire forced the game to be moved from its original Saturday date.

Big Sandy is scheduled to host Box Elder Friday with junior varsity tipping off at 4:30 p.m. and the varsity start set for 7:30. The Pioneers then hit the road for North Star with JV at 1:30 p.m. and varsity at 4:30 Saturday in Rudyard.