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Longhorns playing tougher competition in preparation for conference season

MEETEETSE - The non-conference portion of the basketball season is a good time to get a look at other teams in your class or even play a few tune-up games before the conference season starts. But for Meeteetse High School boys basketball coach Ty Myers, he approaches the non-conference season as a means to play tougher competition often going up a class to ready his team for the conference season.

So far in the early season the Longhorns (1-3) have played the Evanston freshmen winning 55-49, 2A Shoshoni, losing 49-30, 2A Rocky Mountain, losing 69-43 and WyoPreps No. 5-ranked 1A team Farson-Eden, losing 55-49.

"Through four games we've been playing up against mostly 2A teams to prepare for our conference season," said coach Myers. "Right now we need to improve our scoring in the paint. Defensively we're pretty sound. We played Rocky Mountain and they're pretty deep and have guys on the bench who have the same skill set as their starters. We lost to Shoshoni but I feel going into conference we need to be playing up. So I'm not real concerned where our record stands in the non-conference part of the season."

Coach Myers added, "We'll take our lumps early to hopefully improve and play better in-conference, because that's when the season really matters."

The Longhorns are a senior-heavy team with six seniors, two juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen. Leading the team in the early part of the season has been football standout, senior Dalton Abarr, along with junior Dawson Kluesner and senior Owen Burbank

"Dalton Abarr has been stepping up for us as well as Dawson Klusner. They go back and forth, game to game on who is going to have the most points or rebounds. It's so competitive between the two, they work really hard and it's a good thing for us," said coach Myers.

"Owen Burbank has also stepped up. We talked the other day about earning the respect from your defender and against Farson he went on a shooting tear and earned some respect from the guys guarding him. He built a lot of confidence from this last tournament by shooting and seeing shots go in. I think as of now he's shooting around 65 or 67 percent from behind the arc. So when he lets it go there's a good chance it's going to go in," said Myers.

Coach Myers also spoke about his bench and what he likes so much about them. "I have a bench full of role players that know the offense well and are helping us defensively. As the season progresses I know they'll step in and help us score a little more," he said.

Along with having a senior-heavy team Myers is pleased that he can lean on his seniors whom he's coached since the sixth grade.

"These kids have been playing together since the fifth grade and I've coached all of these seniors, except one, since the sixth grade. So they know my system and know what my expectation are, which allows us to work on the little things so that they don't become big things," said coach Myers.

With the familiarity between coach and players it has been easy for coach Myers and his team to establish an identity that fits the team best.

"We're definitely a running team and playing slow isn't in our game. Our production goes down when we play slow," said coach Myers, "I've had these kids running since junior high with transition offense, fast-break offense and moving without the ball. We don't play set play basketball everything is motion and cutting toward the basket. So when we run a set play it slows them down a bit. Every time I've tried to put the reigns on these guys we don't perform like we can so we just run and play basketball.

Coming out of the break Meeteetse will play the Lovell JV on Jan. 5 and Arapahoe on Jan. 6.

"We're going to try and work on our offensive production and looking at 60 points a game coming out of the break," said coach Myers when asked what his team will focus on during the Christmas break. "Defensively we want to hold teams below the 50-point mark. At the 1A level if we can hold teams under 50 we're going to be doing pretty good."