The girls road trip continues in Paonia – Yuma Pioneer

This week is road trip time for the Yuma High School girls’ basketball team.
The Indians took the lead 4-10 in the shortened season B 2021, but still made it to the playoffs of class 2A with 24 teams thanks to an enormous schedule.

In fact, head coach Jeremy Robinson jokingly remarked that not only did the Indians “squeak in” as the 24th seed, they actually came in 23rd. (You were the 22nd seed as Mancos dropped out of the playoffs due to quarantine.)
“I’m excited for the girls,” said Robinson. “To be honest, I think we have a pretty decent draw.”Hailey Eyring fired a shot during the Platte Valley game last Saturday. (Pioneer photo)
They did that even though they had to stay in the mountains for a few days.
As the 22nd seed, the Indians opened the playoffs last Tuesday at the 11th Seed Soroco in Oak Creek, 295 miles from Yuma, and scored an exciting 46-44 win.
That win sends her to Paonia for a Sweet 16 game today, March 11th. Paonia is 366 miles from Yuma
Because of the great distances, the Indians traveled to Oak Creek on Tuesday morning and spent the night in Kremmling, where they would win or lose on Tuesday. Since then, they have made their way south for tonight’s game in Paonia.
If they somehow win that, they would most likely play in the quarter-finals against Sanford (near Alamosa) on Saturday, which will require an extended stint on the west side of the state. (CHSAA announced today, March 11th, that Saturday’s games have been postponed to Monday due to the impending snowstorm.)
“I just hope they’re excited,” said Robinson of his players at the playoff opener on Tuesday. “It’s a long way to go to lose a game.”
Fortunately, they went all the way to win.
Lea Richardson plays the ball on the floor in Platte Valley last Saturday. (Pioneer photo) The Indians led at half time with 29-25 and in the third with 35-25. However, they had one of their patented cold spells when the Rams rallied to take a 42-39 lead by 3 minutes 10 seconds.
Taylor Law linked the score to a 3-hand in her second of play. Lea Richardson, who had 10 points in the second quarter, brought Yuma to 44-42 with two free throws, but Soroco came back to tie.
Senior Ema Richardson then stepped in with a putback of a miss that left about 5 seconds for the victory points.
The Richardson girls both got double-digit results, and Law added six points. Complete statistics were not available prior to going to press.
Yuma ended the regular season last weekend with failures against Wray and Platte Valley.
Even losing to such high-profile teams added to the overall ranking of the Indians as it strengthened their schedule.
Robinson said the Indians ended up with a plus 8.7 strength of the schedule, the highest in any 2A.
The Soroco Rams took a 10-2 lead in the regular season, including many blowout wins, but their strength on schedule was negative (1.3). “Apparently the strength of the schedule is extremely important,” noted Robinson.
“The teams we’re going to play probably wouldn’t have the records they have if they’d played our schedule,” said Robinson. “We were battle-tested.”
Yuma has played five of the top 13 teams in the 2A playoffs, two of the top eight in the 3A playoffs (Brush and Platte Valley), and two teams in the 1A playoffs – meaning nine of their 14 games against them were teams that made the postseason. Plus they have a win against a Peyton team that made the playoffs as the 24th seed and also played a really good Chase County squad in Imperial, Nebraska.
“Perhaps this is the brightly shining moment we need,” said Robinson.
Wray ended up on the eighth seed after finishing the regular season with a win over the Indians. However, the Eagles are hosting Sedgwick County with the ninth seed tonight when the Cougars beat Peyton 50-39 on Tuesday. The winner of today’s game will then likely travel to Holyoke on Saturday. Holyoke is playing the Lotus School of Excellence with the 16th seed tonight in the Sweet 16 round.
Don’t count the Eagles running as they looked very impressive in their 76:47 win at The Pit last Friday night.
Yuma quickly fell 11-2 against his county rival, but as usual they fought back to hit 15-13 before Wray extended his lead to 23-13 early in the second quarter.
However, the Indians then put together an excellent 12-1 run to create a 25:24 lead by the middle of the quarter.
Wray prevailed again, however, leading 40-31 at halftime.
The Eagles then secured the big win with a 22-0 run in the third for a 30 point lead and made the fourth quarter a formality.
“You have to play 32 minutes against a team like that,” said Robinson.Ema Richardson fired a shot in Platte Valley last Saturday. (Pioneer photo)
Yuma statistics were not available.
The Indians turned around the next day and made their way to Kersey to play the Platte Valley Broncos, the third seed in the 3A field, in the early afternoon.
The Indians fought again and were only 10-8 behind after the first quarter. Once again, they couldn’t keep up offensively as the Platte Valley gradually expanded its lead. It was 20-14 when the Broncos closed the second with a 9-0 run.
Yuma only allowed the Broncos five points in the third, but only managed six himself. Platte Valley then increased the lead to 20 in the fourth, eventually giving the Indians a 52-30 loss to end the regular season.
“They made eight 3s and we made zero,” said Robinson. “I wasn’t disappointed with the way we played, but it’s easy to be left behind when the other team can shoot like that.”
Yuma statistics were not available
The loss seemed to put an end to the shortened season B of the Indians.
However, when all the “metrics” for determining the playoff field were finally determined on Monday morning, it turned out that the Indians had at least one more game.
“And here we are, the season is not over yet,” said Robinson on Monday.
And now it’s at least up to today’s Sweet 16 round.

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