RIFLE – Once they got clicking, Adam Krick and Stuart Stapleton were hard to defend. Glenwood Springs got a large dose of the Rifle High School starting guards’ act Friday, as the Bears pinned a stunning 64-45 win on the Demons in the league opener for both teams.

Krick and Stapleton scored 29 points between them and were the biggest factor in Bears win, which moved them to 5-4 (1-0 league) on the season.Krick finished with a game-high 18 points. Stapleton added 11, with five assists.”All our backcourt (players) are great athletes,” Stapleton said. “But, Adam is awesome. He’s quick and he can do a lot of things. It’s nice to have somebody back there like that.”At 5 feet, 10 inches, the Rifle guards were among the smallest players on the floor, but were able to use different methods to get good looks at the basket.Stapleton and Krick’s combination of speed, court sense, and well-set screens created plenty of easy baskets as Rifle’s lead ballooned to 20 points early in the fourth quarter.The duo’s game was at its best in the third period during a 10-2 run during which Rifle wrested the lead away from the Demons for good.Stapleton lit the fuse when he drained a 3-pointer for a 39-38 Rifle lead with 4 minutes, 56 seconds left in the quarter.A possession later, Krick slithered inside the paint and scored on a dish from Brandon Leuallen for some breathing room. Leuallen finished with 13 points.

The Bears hit on 10-of-12 field goal attempts in the third period – including three treys, two from Stapleton and another by Leuallen, fittingly, on Stapleton’s kickback pass.”Rifle made the swing, and we didn’t put a stop to it,” Demons senior Sean Flohr said. “Those are the times (as a team) you have to calm down and revert back to what works. We just got into a panic and it got worse from there.”Glenwood’s woes continued into the fourth quarter, when a 9-0 Bears burst helped raise Rifle’s nine-point margin at the start of the fourth to a 20-point cushion.”Our defense helped us,” Stapleton said. “When we play good D, our offense just flows.”Krick agreed:”We stepped it up and shut down (Sean) Flohr and kept playing hard.”The final score was surprising considering how Glenwood (3-6, 0-1) dominated play in the first quarter. The Demons took an 11-0 lead in the opening five minutes, and were on the verge of putting Rifle’s lights out quickly.

“I was a little surprised how well they came out,” Krick said. “We were calm, we had our composure, we executed on offense, we moved the ball – all the things you want a basketball team to do,” Flohr said of the early burst. As usual, Flohr and his younger brother, Michael, led the way for Glenwood.The Flohr brothers connected on three, deep three-pointers as part of the opening 11-0 Demon run. Sean also made his defensive presence felt, blocking three of Rifle’s first five shots in the game.Up 13-2, the Demons appeared to rolling. But Rifle chopped the lead to five by the end of the period and took a short-lived lead – on a Stapleton three-pointer – with 1:41 left in the first half.Glenwood held a 31-28 advantage at the halftime intermission.But after the break, the Demons went stone cold. In the second half, Glenwood was 6-for-27 from the floor and scored 14 points. Sean Flohr led Glenwood with 15 points and three assists, with five rebounds. Michael Flohr pulled down seven rebounds and had 14 points.