The Battle Mountain High School boys basketball team finished its regular season on the road with a split of two road games in preparation for this week’s regional tournament.
Battle Mountain opened with a 72-40 win at Coral Academy in Reno on Friday night. The Longhorns scored 57 of their 72 points in the first half, including a season-high 33 points in the second quarter to lead 57-26 at halftime.
The scoring turned into a crawl from there, with the teams combining for 28 points in the entire second half.
Jay Narramore, Austin Behrman, Riley Buller and Alan Martinez each chipped in 10 points.
“We overcame some really weird occurrences before the game in Reno and jumped out with 57 points in the first half,” said BMHS coach Toby Melver. “Everyone played a lot and everyone contributed. It was a good chance to get everyone a lot of playing time and game experience.”
BMHS comes up short at Yerington
The regular season came to a close on Saturday afternoon in Yerington, with the Lions picking up a 50-44 win on their home floor. With the loss, the Longhorns finished the regular season at 15-12 overall and 8-8 in the Northern 2A.
Yerington jumped out to a nine-point lead, 19-10, after eight minutes of play, only to see Battle Mountain close the gap to 32-28 at halftime.
“It was kind of a slow game for both teams,” added the coach. “Neither of us really got on track at all. Our defense kept us in the game but we could never get our offense going real well.”
The Lions pushed the lead back to double figures in the third quarter 10 11 points.
The Longhorns rallied to trim the lead to a basket late in the game, but could not get over the hump in the end.
Aldo Castellanos and DJ Martinez paced Battle Mountain with 15 and 12 points, respectively. Behrman and Narramore each had six points, Buller three and Brock Bullock two. Bullock had a team-high eight rebounds and Kobe Lake, Castellanos, DJ Martinez and Behrman each had five boards. Castellanos added three steals.
Battle Mountain finished in a three-way tie for fourth place in the Northern 2A, but will be the No. 6 seed in the regional tournament based on tie-breakers.
Battle Mountain takes on West Wendover on Thursday at 8 p.m. at Pershing County High School in Lovelock. The winner plays North Tahoe on Friday at 8 p.m.
Yerington and White Pine play on Thursday at 4:40 p.m. in Lovelock, with that winner playing Incline at 4:40 p.m. on Friday. The championship is set for Saturday at 2 p.m.
