The PVHS girls basketball team played host to Division III Southern League co-leader White Pine Dec. 30 and suffered a 49-27 loss.
The Ladycats, 10-0 on the season, were just too much for the smaller, younger Alamo girls from the outset.
Coach Krystal Smith said coming in they felt Kalli Hosier would be a problem for them. “A tough ball handler and good shooter, but we had some pretty good one-on-one lock down defenders to put on her and wear her out.” Kadi Finicum was the one given the assignment and did a very good job, Smith said. “And Jenna Gubler also came in and really handled her well.”
Junior Debra Kingston was the leading scorer in the game with 14 points, and everyone contributed Smith said. Jamie Hansen was high for Pahranagat Valley with 10 points.
Kingston said the Bobcats played well together and had really good defense. We did really good against their press. It was really good for us.”
The White Pine girls are allowing an average of only 18 points per game while scoring 45 points a game. They have been in the state tournament each of the past four years including being runner-up twice.
Hansen said she thought the Pahranagat team did “pretty well at the beginning as we were running our plays. But I think we get in trouble when we don’t run our plays and at the end we kind of got a little crazy and didn’t play as a team. That’s our main problem, not playing as a team.”
Alamo coach Amy Huntsman said, “We had a lot of turnovers and errors and were not shooting as well as we are capable of. White Pine is a good team. We are still a very young team with only one senior starter.”
A couple of back-to-back non-league games last weekend also resulted in losses. 45-31 to Mountain View and 50-36 to Wells.
Rose Adkins and Kiley Murphy both scored 19 points to lead the Saints to their win over the Lady Panthers. All Alamo players scored with Jade Jewett netting a team high 8 points.
Against Wells, one of the top Division IV northern teams, the Alamo girls had a rash of turnovers in the second quarter that gave the Leopards a 26-14 lead. Kaitlyn Del Rio led four players in double figures with 15 points. Cody Gibbs had 12 while Rachel Johnny and Sammy Stumpf scored 10 apiece.
Alyson Egbert was team high for PVHS with nine points.
Huntsman said the team needs, “to better minimize the turnovers and then we’ll be OK. As we improve in league, you’re going to see a different team.”
Pahranagat Valley (4-10) played Parowan, Utah on Tuesday this week. The turnover bug bit both teams hard, but PVHS had more in a 43-23 loss. Jamie Hansen had 14 points for the Lady Panthers, but no one else scored more than two points.
Taylor Robb led Parowan with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Shelley Barlett and Autumn Rogerson each had nine points.
PVHS opens league play at Indian Springs (0-9) this Friday. All but one of their remaining games after that are league games.
