At Indian Springs, Geoff Mortensen and Christian Higbee each scored seven points to help the Pahranagat Valley boys basketball team open Division IV league play 41-15 over the winless Thunderbirds.
The Panthers started the game on a 19-2 run and led 38-4 at halftime.
Sebastian Smith scored six points to lead Indian Springs.
“We took 15 players and everybody got to play,” said Alamo coach Mike Strong. Indian Springs has been playing a JV schedule early in the season Strong said, “and are just now trying to play some varsity ball. Against some teams, they’ll do alright.”
Everyone scored for PVHS (7-3, 1-0) as they spread the wealth around. Other than Smith for Indian Springs (0-8, 0-2), no one else had more than two points.
Non-league action on Saturday in Mesquite saw Marcus Saunders score 15 points to help the Virgin Valley Bulldogs top the Panthers 52-30.
Cody Burnside added 11 points for Virgin Valley (6-9), which outscored Pahranagat 32-12 in the middle quarters.
Wade Leavitt led the Panthers (7-4, 1-0)) with nine points.
“It was a good game for us, good to play that level of competition, to see where we’re at and what to work on,” said Strong. “We did a real nice job with their pressure, but struggled putting the ball in the basket in the second half, not shooting well from the outside, and teams are collapsing a lot on our big men, plus we had some turnovers, but we rebounded well.”
PVHS stays in league play for the rest of the season and this weekend they host Beaver Dam (5-3, 2-1) on Friday and go to Lund (0-3, 0-2) on Saturday.
The game with Beaver Dam will be important Strong explained, “because there are definitely four really, really good teams in Vegas (Spring Mountain, Adelson, Word of Life, and Quest Academy),” with PVHS and Beaver Dam trying to get one of the six playoff spots.
