Pintos, Mustangs looking to get on track at Shootout

California Pintos coach Ron Lebel is still learning about his team just a few weeks into his first year at the helm.

"Still trying to figure out some rotations," Lebel said. "We're at about eight bodies deep. Struggling to score a little bit, so we're trying to find rotations where we can find more consistent offense."

The Pintos have scored 49, 89, 62, 84 and 64 points in their first five games of the season. Two of the four losses were decided by a combined six points.

"We're just really struggling shooting the basketball right now," Lebel said. "That's one thing that's been our focus."

The Pintos' opponent Saturday in the Capital City Shootout, the Eldon Mustangs, are also hoping to end a sluggish start. Tip-off is at 2:30 p.m. at Fleming Fieldhouse.

"We're just trying to get over the hump right now," Eldon coach Brandon Kliethermes said Dec. 6 when the team was 0-5. "Out of our five games we've had four different leading scorers, so we feel like we're pretty well balanced. We're just trying to get it all to go at once."

The Mustangs will enter Saturday's matchup at 0-7.

Seniors Devin Degraffenreid and Jordan Metz have led the Mustangs so far.

"Devin is a pretty consistent scorer, shoots the ball really well," Kliethermes said.

Like California, Eldon has also had some fairly close losses.

The Mustangs came up short in both of their Warsaw Tournament games - losing 71-61 to Lincoln and 83-71 to Skyline. Eldon has also lost by a point at Buffalo.

"Turnovers is the biggest thing right now," Kliethermes said. "We get a little lackadaisical with the ball. We're just trying to learn from our mistakes. Early on we didn't rebound the ball very well and that's something we've tried to emphasize in practice and we've gotten better at it."

The Pintos have been led by juniors Isaac Ash and Jordon Geiser.

"Both leading us in scoring and kind of leading us in the right direction on the floor," Lebel said.

Lebel also mentioned one player who's surprised him early in the season.

"Trystan Hees is one of our bigger kids that is kind of getting a little more scoring than I anticipated and is doing a good job too at leading the team," he said.