A schedule that’s featured several heavyweight opponents brought the Fernley High School boys basketball team to San Diego last weekend, where the Vaqueros split their first two games and had two games remaining to begin this week.
Playing at Carlsbad High, the Vaqueros beat American Leadership Academy–West Foothills of Waddell, Ariz., 71-64 in their first game of the 35th Holiday Classic on Dec. 26. On Saturday, Dec. 27, the Vaqueros lost to Stockton (Calif.) Lincoln 64-52. That left the Vaqueros set to face Douglas at 5:25 p.m. Monday, where a win would put them in the fifth-place game Tuesday evening against either Edison High of Huntington Beach or Oakwood High of North Hollywood. A loss would have put them in the seventh-place game Tuesday afternoon against the loser of the Edison–Oakwood matchup.
The Vaqueros will then return home to open league play against Lowry at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
While Douglas plays a style similar to what the Vaqueros expect to see in league play, coach Cade Knutson said the first two teams they saw last weekend are the kind of teams they would never have had the chance to face anywhere else.
“It was exactly why we came down here,” Knutson said.
Knutson said ALA–West Foothills played a frenetic style the Vaqueros haven’t faced since he’s been a coach, pressing full court the entire game and running two defenders at the player with the ball in the half court.
“I don’t think we ran a single offensive set,” Knutson said.
The Vaqueros were up 25-12 after the first quarter but turned the ball over four times late in the second quarter as ALA–West Foothills made a run to cut the margin to 34-29.
The Vaqueros made a run of their own at the end of the third quarter to stretch the lead back to double digits and kept it there for most of the rest of the game.
Sheldon Jacobson led the Vaqueros with 21 points. Bryce Stephens and Bodie Parsons each had 13, Michael Fitzgerald scored nine, and both Skyler Ledesma-James and Leland Ketelaar had eight.
In the second round, the Vaqueros lost 64-52 to Lincoln, which Knutson believes is the best team in the tournament.
Knutson said Lincoln was a strong and physical team, with multiple players listed at 6-foot-3 or taller, including a 6-foot-8 center.
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