The McDermitt High School boys basketball team found itself in an unfamiliar position this past weekend — on its home floor.
After playing their first 14 games on the season on the road and having two previous home games canceled or postponed, the Bulldogs were ready to play in front of their home fans.
“It was nice to be on our home floor after a 14-game road trip,” said MHS coach Jack Smith. “The kids were not feeling the best but battled through it and did a good job this weekend.”
McDermitt split is two match-ups, beating Wells 55-51 on Thursday and losing 54-47 to Eureka on Friday night. The Bulldogs are now 3-13 overall and fourth in the Northern 1A East.
McDermitt came out sluggish in its home debut against Wells, but bounced back in the final three quarters. The Leopards jumped out to a 11-4 lead in the first eight minutes of play, with the only field goal coming from Braden Ramsey.
Enrique Villalobos scored the Bulldogs; first two points of the game on free throws and later added three baskets near the hoop to keep McDermitt within four points at 18-14. The Leopards added a bucket to stretch the gap back to six points, when senior Tristan Bitt knocked down the first of his five 3-pointers on the night to bring the Bulldogs withing three points, 20-17 after the first quarter.
Bitt added two more long distant shots at the start of the second quarter, with a basket in between from Ramsey to cap off a 15-4 run and give McDermitt a 25-20 run.
In a first half of spurts, the Leopards answered with a 7-0 run to take the lead back at 27-25. Bitt made one more 3-pointer near the end of the half to tie the game again at 30, but Wells would go into the break with a 33-31 advantage.
Ramsey and Bitt combined for the first 11 points of the third quarter, as both players knocked down 3-pointers to put McDermitt ahead 42-33 and the Bulldogs did not trail again.
“We came out of halftime with a nice little run” Smith said. “Tristan and Braeden were able to knock some shots down for us.”
After Villalobos fouled with 14 points and seven rebounds with 2:26 to play, Wells was bale to cut the deficit to 50-48 after getting a rebound and a basket after a missed free throw.
The gap closed to one point at 52-51, but Ramsey was able to make three free throws down the stretch to allow the Bulldogs to hold on for the victory.
“We did just about everything to give the game away to Wells,” added the coach. “We lost a bit of our court sense and turned the ball over way too much. We were finally able to settle down and made some free throws down the stretch.”
Ramsey paced McDermitt with 25 points, five steals and three rebounds. Bitt added 15 points — all on 3-point field goals. Lane Barnett had one point and four rebounds in the victory and Eli Northrup had five rebounds.
McDermitt knocked off by Eureka
McDermitt was back on the floor to take on Eureka on Friday night and after taking a first-quarter lead, the Vandals used a big second quarter to win 54-47.
The Bulldogs jumped out to a 10-8 lead after eight minutes of play, but were outscored 19-7 in the second quarter, as Bitt was injured in the quarter as well and did not return to the contest.
“That hurt us when we lost Tristan for the game,” added the coach. “We lost some momentum right there and Eureka made a run on us.”
McDermitt made a 22-6 run to get back the game and give the Vandals a scare but could not complete the comeback. We had some kids that made some shots that don’t score a lot and that got us fired up. It was nice to see that we played hard the entire game and didn’t quit. I was proud of the guys.”
“We started to pep up about midway through the third quarter and we put a different press on them and it got us some energy,” Smith said. Ramsey had a team-high 22 points and Villalobos added 12 points and 17 rebounds.
McDermitt is back home this week to play Owyhee and Carlin in Northern 1A East action.
