If the ears of the players on the Steamboat Springs girls basketball team were burning after Tuesday's game, it's because everybody was talking about them.
"Steamboat played great," Moffat County coach Craig Mortensen said. "They had girls hitting shots who we told our girls not to guard on the perimeter. They had prepared well."
With the compliments, it sounded as if the Sailors had won. Actually, they had just lost, 50-52, to Moffat County.
Considering that the Bulldogs had won their first seven Western Slope League games by an average of 31.8 points, including a 33-point win against the Sailors the first time around, they deserved some credit.
"They just hit their shots tonight," Moffat County senior Brandie Telfer said.
The Sailors started out hot in the first quarter, and the Bulldogs couldn't have been cooler. Moffat missed its first eight shots.
The Sailors led 9-2 at one point in the first quarter and were up 13-8 at the start of the second quarter.
A 10-0 run by Moffat County put the Bulldogs up 18-13 with 4 minutes, 13 seconds left in the quarter.
The Sailors scored nine of the final 12 points to end the quarter trailing 22-23.
"We must have been excited or nervous, because we missed a lot," Telfer said. "Especially me. I missed a lot of shots I shouldn't have."
The game remained close in the third quarter with the Bulldogs leading by as much as six and as little as one.
At the start of the fourth quarter, junior Jessica Peters made a 3-pointer to give the Sailors their first lead since early in the second quarter, 42-40. Junior Mary Katherine Raftopoulos and Telfer took turns putting the Bulldogs back on top.
The duo combined to score all of the Bulldogs' 12 points in the fourth quarter, including seven unanswered points after Peters' 3-pointer.
Mortensen was a bit relieved that his team had a tough time.
"This one was good for us," he said.
"We might have been looking ahead a bit, but when (Steamboat) can play so well and us not real well, we at least still got the win."
The Bulldogs (15-1, 8-0) may have been looking ahead to a rematch with the Rifle Bears on Friday night.
The two teams are 1-1 against each other this season.
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