9:51 AM
Having already secured the top seed from the East Division for the Northern 3A Region Tournament, the Fernley High School boys basketball team will try to finish league play unbeaten Friday night. The Vaqueros host Dayton at 7:30 p.m. in their final regular season game Friday night before hosting a first round regional tournament game Monday night.
The Vaqueros will be playing the No. 4 seed from the Northern 3A West. Truckee entered this week in fourth place in the West Division, but could claim the No. 3 seed by beating Wooster Friday night. The East and West No. 1 and 2 seeds will host the No. 3 and 4 seeds from the opposite division in the first round of the regional tournament Monday night. The first round winners advance to the regional semifinals, which will be Feb. 13 at Wooster, with the regional championship on Feb. 14.
With a 50-36 win over Elko last Friday and 66-35 over Spring Creek on Saturday, the Vaqueros turned the foregone conclusion of the regular season championship into a formality.
Michael Fitzgerald scored his career high of 22 points to lead the Vaqueros past Elko. With the Indians trying to keep the ball away from Fernley's leading scorers Sheldon Jacobson and Bryce Dunagan-Stephens, Fitzgerald dropped in five of eight 3-pointers.
None were bigger than the one he hit to start the second half. The Vaqueros had led 23-10 after a 3-pointer by Stephens with 2:27 left in the second quarter, but Elko finished the quarter with an 11-1 run to cut the lead to 24-21 and go to the locker room riding a wave of momentum. Elko's Tallan Delmore then scored the first basket of the third quarter to make it 24-23, but Fitzgerald's 3-pointer 46 seconds later ignited a 15-2 run by the Vaqueros to regain control.
"Obviously it's a game of runs and I like that we don't panic in the midst of some of those runs," Fernley coach Cade Knutson said. "We kind of always feel like even if we've missed a couple in a row, somebody's going to knock one down."
Jacobson added 11 points for the Vaqueros while Stephens added 11.
Saturday the Vaqueros took away all suspense early, with a 16-3 run to start the game, led 22-6 after one quarter and 35-15 at the half. Knutson said he was most impressed that the Vaqueros played with energy in a game where they had to create their own because of a small crowd.
"Ther's not a ton of energy in the gym and sometimes when that's the case, you come out flat," he said. "But I thought we came out with a lot of energy and that's exactly what we needed to do."
Stephens scored 23 points, Jacobson added 20 and Bodie Parsons had 10 for the Vaqueros. Defensively, the Vaqueros held Spring Creek to 27 percent shooting, 13-of-48, including just 2-of-19 on threes.
"We defended the 3-point line really well," Knutson said. "We talked about that before the game. That was a key."
Friday night the Vaqueros expect to face a spirited battle against Dayton. The DustDevils got second-leading scorer Talon Brown back last week after missing several game, and he and Isaac Powell combined for 73 points against Fallon.
"Obviously he changes their dynamic offensively, and they're well coached and they run good sets," Knutson said. "We're absolutely going to have to be ready to guard more actions."
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