Craig Daily Press

Before Friday's game against Soroco, Craig Middle School basketball coach David Grabowski had a quick conversation with starter Brian Davidson.

"You're probably only going to play for about a minute tonight," Grabowski said.

Davidson looked a little disappointed but his response was upbeat, "Well I guess we're going to have to play our best for a minute."

Grabowski actually put Davidson and his fellow starters in for two minutes and then they sat for the other 22 in a 49-8 blowout.

The win came six days after the eighth grade A-team dismantled Rangely, 81-12.

"It can be frustrating because next year in high school we're going to play teams like Palisade and Rifle," Davidson said. "These games don't prepare us for that."

The Soroco team had 12 players on the roster, which included sixth, seventh and eighth graders. That forced Soroco to play with the same roster for both the seventh and eighth grade game, with two exceptions (two players joined the team for the eighth grade game).

After losing to the Bulldog's seventh grade team 49-19 the same kids turned around to play the eighth grade.

"It's hard because our starters never get a rhythm," Craig seventh grade coach Ken Olinger said. "It's great for the guys who might not normally play, but it would be so much better if we had three games every night."

Eighth grader Cody Adams was one of the beneficiaries of playing Soroco. He came off the bench to score six points and was the team's second-leading scorer.

"It makes us better," Cody said, referring to the guys he came off the bench with. "Sometimes we just sit and watch, but nights like tonight the other guys get to watch and we play."

Eighth-grade assistant coach Todd Trapp said there are two ways to look at playing schools with one-third the attendance of CMS.

"Some of the guys who aren't in the top 10 will play next year in high school and they'll be the freshman starters because some of the other guys will move up," he said. "For those guys nights like tonight are good. But for the other guys they have to go somewhere else to get consistent competition."

This is nothing new. Nearly every year Craig teams dominate in middle school and then in high school the easy success doesn't always come.

Granted, this year's eighth grade class is one of the most athletic in recent years. They dominated the league in football so much that football teams cancelled on them because they didn't want to face them.

"We had two weeks there were our eighth graders could only practice football in the middle of the season," Olinger said. "Something has to be done to help our scheduling."

In a 2003 Craig Daily Press story CMS Athletic Director Don Guffy explained the scheduling difficulties.

"Rifle plays on Thursday, Grand Junction plays on Sunday, Vernal has an intramural program and Rawlins can't travel out of state," he said. "I could go on and on about why we can't get anybody else...it's like opening a Pandora's box."

Olinger, who started coaching in the school district last year, hopes he can help.

"I grew up in Rawlins and I know their A.D.," he said. "I hope that I can get at least something started. Maybe I don't know how difficult it is because I'm new."

Until there is a change, Steamboat Springs is the only opponent the Bulldogs face that has anywhere near the same school enrollment. Other opponents, Hayden, Meeker, Soroco, Rangely and East Grand are all at least two classifications smaller at the high school level.

"Tonight the pace of the game was good for some of my guys who play on the B or C team," Olinger said. "It's beneficial to them but the only time we have a game at each level is when everybody has a chance to get better. That only happens twice a season."

The players are well aware of the situation and it starts to take its toll.

"It's hard to get up for a game when you know you are only going to play a minute," eighth grader Dustin Carlson said. "I guess that's why we play AAU so we can have competition."

Today the middle school teams travel to Meeker. The eighth-grade boys had their closest game of the season when Meeker came to Craig, the Bulldogs won by double digits.