The Battle Mountain High School varsity boys basketball team came into last week at 15-3 and 6-1 in the Northern 2A, with essential road games against Incline and North Tahoe on the schedule. The Longhorns started last week traveling to Wells for a non-conference game against the Leopards.
Longhorns crush
Leopards
On Tuesday, Jan. 16, Battle Mountain took the court against an outmatched Leopards team inside the Wells High School gym. The Longhorns made easy work of the Leopards, jumping out to an early 17-9 lead in the first quarter. At halftime, Battle Mountain led the Wells team by 40-15.
The Longhorns put their bench in for the rest of the game and still held the Leopards to only 21 points in the final 59-21 win.
Miles Piramide led the team in scoring with 12 points and Marcus Jury led the game in rebounds, bringing down seven boards. Meanwhile, Eddie Morfin earned three steals, Danny Diaz four assists and Reese Artz had two blocks.
BMHS cruises past Incline
On Friday, Battle Mountain set its sights on a difficult road trip to Incline High School. In their previous match-up, the Longhorns defeated Highlanders in Battle Mountain by only three points.
The Longhorns, led by Chris Figueroa’s 14 points and 16 rebounds, battled with the Highlanders but trailed by four points going into the half, 26-22.
In the second half, Incline’s leading scorer for the season Will Stranzl, went down with an apparent knee injury, forcing him out of the game. The loss of Stranzl took away some of the scoring threat the Highlanders possessed. The Longhorns took over from there to win 60-38.
Longhorns close out road trip at North Tahoe
On Saturday, Battle Mountain traveled to North Tahoe for a league meeting with the Lakers. North Tahoe, a team fighting to remain in the playoff conversation, needed to pull off an upset over the league-leading Longhorns to stay in contention.
Rodgers led the Longhorns’ scoring in the game, with 14 points, while Figueroa and Reese Artz each brought down seven rebounds.
The Longhorns built a 29-22 lead going into the half but struggled to keep Lakers’ guard Ted Gibeaut away from the basket. Gibeaut scored 24 points in the game, more than half of the Lakers final total.
Longhorn head coach Roger Wallock recognized the strong play by Gibeaut, but the Lakers still fell short trying to beat Battle Mountain. The Longhorns defeated the Lakers 52-40.
“This was a good week for us, getting three wins on the road — especially at Incline, which has been a difficult place for us to play in the past,” Wallock said. “We are winning games without shooting the three ball particularly well lately, but we are getting the ball inside and executing our half-court offenses pretty well. We played good defense this week, not allowing more than 40 points in any of the three games. Our rebounding is improving, but we still need to take care of the ball better. The next few weeks will be extremely tough for our team, with some good opponents fighting for seeding for the regional tournament.”
The Longhorns (18-3 overall, 8-1 Northern 2A), currently hold the top spot in the league. The lone loss in league came from bitter rival, Pershing County.
The Mustangs traveled to Battle Mountain on Tuesday. Results were not available at press time. The winner of the game, will likely decide who will be the top seed in the regional playoffs.
After the Pershing County game, the Longhorns will travel to Silver Stage High School on Friday and Yerington on Saturday. If Battle Mountain wins all three games, it will all but seal up the top seed in the regional playoffs.
