Oak Creek — By Soroco High School girls basketball coach David Bruner’s estimation, there are six legitimately strong teams in this year’s Class 2A Western Slope League, including his Rams.

That means as the squad heads into the meat of the league schedule, there’s not much room for error.

He saw plenty of error in the first half Friday, as the Rams played host to De Beque, but Soroco closed the game with a powerful statement, winning 79-22. The team now travels Saturday for a game against one of those other top competitors, Rangely.

“We didn’t play very well in the first half,” Bruner said. “They just weren’t playing hard in the first half, making bad passes, and defensively, we weren’t working together. We can’t do that against other teams. If we had been playing Rangely, it would have been a long night.”

It worked pretty well when it did work Friday for the Rams, but it certainly didn’t “work” all the time.

The Rams led 15-2 after the first quarter, but 28-16 at half.

De Beque hasn’t offered the Rams close games in recent seasons but came into Friday’s undefeated and ranked No. 7 in Class 1A. Still, that tight game prompted a stern talking-to from Bruner at halftime, and his team responded.

Soroco allowed only six more points the entire rest of the game, while scoring 51, itself.

The Rams got 15 points each from DaKota Bruner and Mattie Rossi, then 10 from Charlee Veilleux and nine from Morgan George.

It’s going to take a lot more “second-half Soroco” for the Rams to stick in the top of the league. The team, 6-1, plays at 1 p.m. Saturday in Rangely, also 6-1 this season.

Then, next week, more big challenges loom, starting with 7-0 Paonia, the unanimous No. 1 team in Class 2A in the chsaanow.com media poll.

To reach Joel Reichenberger, call 970-871-4253, email jreichenberger@SteamboatToday.com or follow him on Twitter @JReich9