In past years, the Monahans Loboes would be getting ready for the start of district basketball play at the start of a new year. But with only four teams in the District 2-3A, coach Thomas Clay still has three weeks to go before his team opens up their district schedule.

That means a little more time to experiment, which is what the Loboes did on Tuesday night at home against the Greenwood Rangers.  Clay platooned his 10 players into two five-player rotations against Greenwood, which worked for a while, but neither group was able to find their shooting range after the start of the second quarter.  The Rangers went on a 41-12 run over the next 16 minutes of play, before ending up with a 72-35 victory.

"They're real good-we know that," said Clay, who said he tested out the different substitution pattern, which Brownfield used against Monahans last month, to see how it would work against a team that's expected to advance to the playoffs.

"We wanted to try and play a little bit more up-tempo, because I think we're athletic enough," he said.  "I wanted to try it out against some tough team, because they gave us pressure against the ball, and you can't duplicate that in practice."

Sean Merrick's jumper got Monahans on the board first, and the teams would trade baskets during the first period and into the start of the second quarter.  Blake Hughes would hit a 3-pointer for a 6-3 Loboes lead, and they would take the lead three more times, the last  a 12-11 on a rebound lay-up by Tony Dipasquale to open the second period.

A lay-up, by Greenwood's Nick Taylor followed and ended up putting the Rangers ahead to stay.  Addison Stewart then hit a lay-up and Michael Washington followed with a three-pointer and two foul shots for a 20-12 lead.  Merrick finally broke that string with a foul line jumper, but two more baskets by Washington and Taylor boosted the lead to 10 points.

In the second half, Greenwood post player Kendall Nix was Monahans' main problem.  He used his height advantage to score 17 of his 22 points in the second half.  Arnold Rodriquez had the Loboes' only two baskets in the third period, which ended with Monahans trailing by a 49-21 margin.

Rodriquez would end up leading Monahans in scoring with nine, while Taylor had 12 for Greenwood and Austin Ivie also was in double figures with 13, eight coming from the foul line.  Greenwood had a 19-8 scoring advantage from the line, which left the Loboes a little frustrated, as Merrick would be hit with a technical after being hit by Ivie and failing to get a foul call on a drive to the basket during the third period.

"We didn't shoot very well and didn't rebound great, but we didn't have our size up front," said Clay, who was minus both Clayton Hiers and Chris Roberson. He said Hiers would be back Friday while Roberson should play his first game of the season, after recovering from a broken arm he suffered early in November during Monahans' game against Tornillo.

Tuesday's loss left Monahans with an 8-11 record going into their home game Friday against Crane.  Monahans played without most of their varsity players in November at Crane, when they dropped a 60-41 decision.

Play will start on Friday with a junior varsity game at 6 and the varsity at 7:30 p.m.  Monahans' JV lost to Greenwood on Tuesday by a 47-41 score. Aaron Armendariz's nine points led the Loboes.  

Keyed by Amy Davis, Senior '07