February 21, 2008
PVHS Boys Lose Semi-Finals

Photo by Dave Maxwell Brady Whipple goes in for a hard layup with Lake Mead

By Dave Maxwell, Staff Writer

At the 1A Southern Regionals in Las Vegas February 15-16, the Alamo boys lost to Lake Mead in the semi-finals 65-55 on Friday, in a game that was closer than the score indicates. Landon Littlefield scored 22 points, and connected on all 15 free-throw attempts to help the Eagles hold off the Panthers. Ryan Hatch led PVHS with a game-high 23 points, including five 3-point shots.

Lake Mead Coach Jeff Newton said the Panthers “played as tough as they always do,” and stayed the closest any team has all season, except for the one game Lake Mead lost this season (to Anderson High of Broward County, Florida, ranked #1 in 6A, Florida’s largest).

“They forced more turnovers, took away our fast break, our 1-2-2 trap, and did everything they had to do and stayed right with us,” Newton said.

Panther Coach Brian Higbee said, “I thought our defense was pretty outstanding…I feel incredibly good about the teams effort…they work extremely hard and there’s no quit in them.”

Brian said the game plan was to go after Littlefield on offense and defense, and the Panthers accomplished that as he had only five points from the floor, unfortunately when he got fouled, he was perfect at the charity stripe.

Lake Mead earned the No. 1 seed from the 1A Southern by overpowering Trinity 71-55 for the championship. The Eagles (31-1) play Owyhee and Trinity plays Pyramid Lake on Friday at Spanish Springs High School.