Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
After 10 days off, the Fernley High School boys basketball team gets back into action Tuesday for the first of what will be four games in three days at the Rail City Classic in Sparks.
The Vaqueros will face Hug at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday to start the tournament. They play twice o Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. against McQueen and at 5:30 p.m. against Lowry, before finishing in a matchup to be determined on Thursday.
The Vaqueros enter the tournament on a four-game winning streak, all in crossover games against Northern 3A West opponents. They beat South Tahoe 54-40 in their home opener Dec. 7, and followed that up with a 61-24 win over Wooster on Dec. 10. The following week, they beat Truckee 53-39 and Sparks 66-37, setting themselves up with potential tiebreaker advantages with those teams if needed for playoff seeding.
Against Sparks, the Vaqueros used an 18-0 run in the second quarter, holding the Railroaders to five points in the quarter, to take control of a game that coach Cade Knutson had expected would be a challenge. He was particularly concerned about stopping Sparks guard Orande Todd, a quick point guard who came into the game averaging more than 12 points per game.
But the Vaqueros held him to six points, getting 20 points from their own point guard, Jett Caudle.
That win capped a strong two-week stretch for the Vaqueros, but Knutson said the tournament this week will help them develop as they prepare to face stiffer competition as East Division play begins after New Year’s Day.
“We just got to continue to get better,” he said. “There’s things that we need to do better. The teams that we have coming up, each team we play is going to be a little bit better than the last.”
The Vaqueros also got 14 points that day from Jake Cumming.
“Last year we didn’t really throw it inside with the intention that he was going to make moves and make plays, it was kind just throw it inside to kick it out to a shooter, and he had a great offseason for us and really developed some post moves and we keep finding opportunities to throw it inside to him and it makes us tough to guard when we can throw it inside to him with four shooters.”
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