February 28, 2008
Alamo Girls Lose to Owyhee

By Dave Maxwell, Staff Writer

For the second straight year the PVHS girls lost to Owyhee at the 1A State Basketball Tournament. Last year it was in the championship game, this year it was in the semi-final game. But it was close, 60-56 in overtime.

The Lady Panthers beat Owyhee for the 2007 state volleyball championship and may have done it again in basketball except for the Braves coming to life with their outside shooting game.

Owyhee Coach Carol Couchum said, “We played sloppy in the first half. We had too many turnovers.” Alamo used all of that to fashion a 32-19 halftime lead.

However, the Braves (24-6) got their act together in the second half and went on what could be referred to as an 18-8 Indian Raid run in the third quarter to only trail by three, 40-37, going into the final quarter. “They began scoring on a lot of outside shots,” said Panther Coach Amy Huntsman, “and we weren’t.”

"Considering they were so much bigger than us, in the first half we were able to control what they did, Huntsman said, “but in the second half they started hitting the outside shot.” That’s when momentum shifted to Owyhee and they used it to finally tie the game 53-all with only 28 seconds remaining. After Mary Higbee missed the front end, a 1-and-1 with 17 seconds left, the Panthers got the ball back with 7 seconds remaining, but could not get a shot off before the end of regulation.

Owyhee’s Holly Thomas and Tina Gallardo scored all of the Braves’ points in overtime. Thomas finished with a game-high 28 points.