Dave Maxwell:
Pahranagat’s Cody Williams will lead a group of five Panther seniors into the 1A Southern League tournament this weekend. The top two advance to the state tournament Feb. 24-25 in Las Vegas.V
Two 23-point quarters, the second and third, propelled Pahranagat Valley to a 60-21 win over Beaver Dam in the final regular season league game last week which was also Senior Night.
Now the Panthers will face either Beatty or Word of Life in the league tournament semifinals today at Sunrise Mountain High in Las Vegas.
Beatty and Word of Life had a first round playoff game on Wednesday this week in Beatty.
Spring Mountain (13-10, 8-0), as the No. 1 seed, plays the winner of the game between Round Mountain (10-9, 5-3) and Beaver Dam (5-20, 3-5).
Closing out the season on the home court last Friday, the Panther seniors all saw some playing time. Tabor Maxwell led all scorers with 18 points and Cody Williams added nine.
A fast 9-0 start for PVHS in the first quarter slowed down a lot as Beaver Dam closed within 10-8 at the end of the period.
But after that, the Panthers (22-2, 7-1) went on a 46-8 romp and turned the game into a rout.
Coach Mike Strong said, “It wasn’t until the second quarter we played like we can. Began to move the ball better, got active defensively, got some easy looks and hit some shots. Proud of the seniors and the opportunity they got to play together.”
Tabor Maxwell led all scorers with 18 points and Cody Williams added nine as most of the players got into the scoring column. Uriel Perez was high for the Diamondbacks with six points.
Going into the playoffs this week, Strong said what the team needs to do is, “be concerned about the things that we can control and take care of, because we can’t control the other. I think over the last two weeks, we have been playing pretty well. We’ve hit long spurts of playing better. I like where we are right now.”
The league tournament semifinals are at Sunrise Mountain tonight and the finals on Saturday. The top two advance to the state tournament next weekend with the semifinals at Durango High and the finals Saturday night at the Cox Pavilion on the UNLV campus.
NIAA playoff prices will apply for all tournament games.
