The last time the Battle Mountain High School junior varsity boys basketball team was on the floor was mid-December in Lake Tahoe.
With the New Year upon us and Christmas break over, the Longhorns jumped back into Northern 2A play this past weekend. Battle Mountain lost 67-25 at West Wendover on Friday and came back with a 59-27 win over White Pine on Saturday in Ely.
West Wendover jumped out to a 20-8 advantage in the first quarter and did not look back. The Wolverines made another big run in the third quarter to put the game out of reach.
Bradley Rogers had seven points for the Longhorns and Marcus Jury added six.
“This was a really rough game for us,” said BMHS coach Tyler Samuelson. “Coming off of winter break, we didn’t have a full team to practice with until Tuesday, so we were out of shape, and didn’t execute very well. West Wendover is a very good team and we needed to play our best basketball to compete with them, and we didn’t.”
Despite a slow start on Saturday, Battle Mountain dominated the final three quarters in its win at White Pine.
The game was tied at 10 after eight minutes of play, when the Longhorns doubled up the Bobcats in the second quarter to lead 26-18 at halftime. The difference was the second half, where Battle Mountain outscored White Pine 33-9, including 23-6 in the third quarter.
Roy Chavira and Rogers paced the Longhorns with 16 points apiece. Roberto Esparza added eight.
“We were still a little down from the game the night before, and we started off very slow,” Samuelson said. “We picked it up some in the second quarter but we still weren’t firing on all cylinders by any means. We came out in the third quarter playing our best basketball of the year. Our defensive pressure was high, and we were executing plays on offense. We led 48-24 after the third quarter. Overall, this game sort of mimicked our season, we started off very slow, but hit our stride and played some of the best basketball we have all year.”
Battle Mountain traveled to Lovelock on Tuesday to take on rival Pershing County. Results were not available at press time.
Battle Mountain is back home this weekend to play Yerington on Friday at 4:30 p.m. and Silver Stage on Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
