The McDermitt High School boys basketball team went to Reno to compete in the Winter JV Invitational on Nov. 29 thru Dec. 1 and lost all three of their games.
“Our first game was our best game; we played the Fallon JV team,” McDermitt High School boys basketball coach Jack Smith said.
The Bulldogs fell 58-44 in that contest. The Greenwave out-scored the Bulldogs 42-22 in the second half, scoring 21 points each in the third and fourth quarters.
“We were ahead at halftime (22-16), but they had a volume of players and I brought seven," said MHS coach Jack Smith. "Jagger (Hinkey) is trying to be our point guard and he is really a post player. We are struggling at the guard position this year. I have been spoiled for the past few years with some really good guards. I have my hands full this year with no guards and no seniors. Now, we are just trying to be creative.”
On Friday, Nov. 30, McDermitt took on the Galena Grizzlies JV squad and suffered a 59-19 defeat.
Galena raced out to a 27-6 lead in the first quarter and held McDermitt to six points or less in each of the four quarters.
“Galena JV had good shooters and shot our zone defense apart,” Smith said. “We only have about a quarter of my system in so far. I am a ‘press guy’ and we are not close to being ready to do that yet. I don’t like to play zone defense, but that is all we are playing right now. My plays, my press, my press-breaker, my half-court stuff; we have a lot of work to do. At our first practices I pounded the fundamentals, like direction dribbling and rebounding.”
In the tournament finale on Saturday, McDermitt lost 64-27 to Lassen, Calif.
McDermitt trailed by five points (15-10) after a quarter of play but Lassen pulled away in the middle quarters, out-scoring McDermitt 33-10.
“On Saturday we played Lassen, who has another good JV team,” Smith said. “We did better at the start of the game, but then Jagger fouled out at the start of the third quarter. We learned a lot about our team this weekend. We played large schools JV teams that had good players. Every team had fifteen kids on the bench; they kind of came at us in waves.”
The Bulldogs travelled to Jordan Valley, Ore., for a game on Monday, Dec. 3, and results of the contest were not available at press time.
McDermitt travels to Virginia City this weekend for the Comstock Classic.
McDermitt is scheduled to play Pahranagat Valley on Thursday at 7 p.m. The Bulldogs play twice on Friday, starting with Round Mountain at 2 p.m. and Virginia City at 7:20 p.m. Battle Mountain concludes the tournament on Saturday at 10:20 a.m.
