Facing one of their top two challengers in the Northern 3A East and a stretch of three games in four days, the Fernley High School boys basketball team came away with four dominant wins in the past week.
The Vaqueros put together a strong finish to beat Fallon 62-44 on Jan. 6, dominated Elko 56-35 and Spring Creek 70-26 last Friday and Saturday, then were never challenged in an 81-17 win over Sparks on Monday night.
The Vaqueros now lead the Northern 3A East with a 4-0 record, and head to Dayton Friday to finish the first half of the league schedule.
The Vaqueros began the week with the win over Fallon, outscoring the Greenwave 28-12 over the final 12 minutes. The Vaqueros had led 24-9 before Fallon closed within 31-29. Bryce Dunagan-Stephens then scored Fernley’s next eight points, kickstarting the Vaqueros’ finishing kick.
Dunagan-Stephens finished with 26 points and Sheldon Jacobson added 16, and the Vaqueros’ defense held Fallon’s leading scorer Calin Anderson to six points.
“I thought Bryce did a good job keeping the ball out of his hands, but ultimately when he started shaking free, we had guys there,” coach Cade Knutson said. “And that was the key to the game, in our opinion.”
Knutson focuses his defensive game plans on stopping the opponent’s best scorers, and the Vaqueros were again successful at that in Elko and Spring Creek.
They held Elko’s leading scorer Tallan Delmore to seven points Friday night. The game stayed close through the first half, as the Vaqueros led 27-21 at the half. They scored the first six points of the third quarter and led by 13 going to the fourth before pulling away.
Sheldon Jacobson scored 19 points, while Stephens added 13 and keyed the defensive effort against Delmore.
“Bryce has been guarding the other team’s best players since he was a freshman and it’s really impressive that he’s able to be such a two-way player,” Knutson said. “But it’s a collective thing. It takes all five guys to guard the ball. We call it man-to-man defense, but it’s really ball defense. Wherever the ball is, we’re flying around and rotating.”
Saturday afternoon it was Spring Creek’s Snowden Williams that drew the Vaqueros’ attention, and they held him to just four shot attempts and seven points.
Fernley used a 15-0 run to take a 20-5 lead, led 40-14 at the half and only twice in the game did Spring Creek score on consecutive possessions.
Stephens led the Vaqueros with 22 points and Leland Ketelaar added 20.
“We want to wear teams down with our pressure, and we knew that they were short on their rotation,” Knutson said.
Friday the Vaqueros will face a Dayton team that beat them once last year and, along with Fallon, is expected to be the top challenger in the Northern 3A East. Dayton defeated Elko and Spring Creek last week as well and is 2-0 heading into a Wednesday game against Fallon. Their leading scorer Isaac Powell averages 21.9 points per game, and Talon Brown is close behind at 19.2.
“They are good basketball players and then outside of that, they just have physical kids who are bought into their system,” Knutson said. “I anticipate quite the test.”
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