The Fernley High School boys basketball team has spent the past four seasons chasing the state’s biggest prize, falling short in the 3A state tournament against talented Southern Nevada teams each time.
To try to get over that hump, coach Cade Knutson is pitting his team against some of the toughest competition he can find this season. For most of their last two Saturdays, the Vaqueros were every bit the equal, and then some, of two of the best teams in the state in any classification. But both times, they came up short at crunch time of games they led most of the way.
Last Saturday, it was Bishop Manogue, considered by consensus the best team in Northern Nevada, which made more plays down the stretch to pull out a narrow 48-46 win in Fernley. A potential game-winning 3-pointer fired on the run by Sheldon Jacobson bounced off the front of the rim as time expired.
The Vaqueros led most of the game, including by as much as 14 late in the second quarter. Manogue closed the first half with an 8-0 run and steadily narrowed the margin until taking the lead 38-37 with 5:10 left in the game.
“It’s hard to say one possession lost you a game, but when there’s three and four and five possessions that didn’t go your way and they were close, the compilation of those, you know, determined results,” Knutson said. “For us, it’s about learning from these situations.”
The Vaqueros had runs of 9-0, 10-2 and 10-3 in the first half while building a 29-15 lead. Bryce Dunagan-Stephens had four 3-pointers and 18 of his game-high 26 points in that first half.
Fernley led 35-28 with 2:39 left in the third quarter, but that’s when the Miners went on a 10-2 run to take a 38-27 lead.
A free throw by Jacobson, who finished with 12 points, tied the game at 38 with 4:53 left, but Manogue’s Jamahl Jackson scored eight seconds later, and the Miners never relinquished the lead. A 3-pointer by Stephens with 7.2 seconds left pulled Fernley within 47-46, but Manogue’s Kade Snyder hit one of two free throws with 5.2 seconds left and Jacobson’s shot at the buzzer came up just short.
Stephens and Jacobson combined for 38 of Fernley’s 46 points.
“We’ve got to be better offensively in crunch time situations,” Knutson said. “We can’t just be like, throw it to Bryce and Sheldon and watch them and hope they make a play. I mean, they make a ton of plays throughout the game, but we as coaches have to be a little more creative with how we get them loose in crunch time situations.”
Stephens also drew the defensive assignment against Snyder, the 6-foot-8 son of former Nevada star Kirk Snyder who has signed with Nevada. Snyder led the Miners with 13 points, but Knutson was particularly proud of the defensive effort.
“Bryce, from an individual standpoint, guarding a Nevada commit, I mean, held him to 13 points, and I don’t know if two or four of them were easy,” Knutson said. “The rest of them were tough, so just a heck of an individual effort there, and then collectively, I think in the first half, we held them to 23 points, 40-something for the game.”
The previous Saturday, the Vaqueros led throughout against Mojave, one of the top teams in the Southern 5A, but a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Mojave sent the game to overtime.
“We had a 10-minute film session just on the last two minutes of the Mojave game, where we had a lead, felt like we should win, and it didn’t happen for us,” Knutson said. “We’re doing things that are detrimental in close games that you’ve got to clean certain things up and we’ve got to get better at it.”
In between, the Vaqueros went to South Tahoe on Tuesday and brought home an 82-52 win in a Northern 3A crossover game. Jacobson had 24 points and Stephens had 22 for the Vaqueros, who built a 20-2 lead in the first quarter and cruised from there.
“I wouldn’t say we played a perfect game, but to win a road game by 30 against a team that just beat Elko by 17 last night, that’s a good win,” Knutson said.
The Vaqueros were scheduled to host Incline in a Northern 3A crossover on Tuesday, then host Spanish Springs, another of the top Northern 4A teams, at 6 p.m. Friday.
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