By Vern Hee

The Trojans boys basketball team is in action at the Mountain View Invitational in Las Vegas, which started on Jan. 2 and closes out on Saturday.

The team lost to the hoopsters from Rancho on Wednesday afternoon, 40-58.

Melvin Shivers, head coach for the Rancho Rams, said he is using this tourney to get his team well. This was their first win of the season.

Throughout the game the Trojans never led. In the first half they shot 27 percent, 7-26 .

Troy could not get a hold on the Rams’ pressure defense and this forced them to shoot from the perimeter. The Rancho defense also forced Pahrump to turn over the ball 16 times in that first half.

The Rams built a 30-16 lead on the three-point shooting of J’Men Eagles. Then a 15-6 point spree in the third quarter gave Rancho a 45-25 lead late in the game.

Brian Hayes, head Trojans coach, has said all along going into this tournament that his team needs to play four quarters. Hayes felt his team was able to play 2 good quarters against Clark just before the holiday break.

“We shot 16-60 from the floor 27% and turned the ball over 26 times. The bottom line is we are not going to win any games at the 1-A level scoring under 50 points a game. We have to pick up our scoring in our half court offense. Of our 40 points, 18 were scored off transition or off of offensive rebounds. Thus, we only scored 22 points in 4 quarters out of our half court offense. We will continue to work on it during the tournament and hope to have some success in our upcoming 3 games,” said coach.

For Troy, Dalton Beighley had 13 points, Quon Cotton 10 points, Jesse Crane, 4, Deon Estes 2. Adam Brand had 8 rebounds.

Too late for deadline, Hayes’ team took on Sage Hill from California. Then on Friday and Saturday the team plays two unknown opponents.

There is still plenty of time for the Trojans to turn their season around. They are only 0-1 in league despite a 1-11 record overall.

These games should be used as a chance for his team to get some good game experience before league play, which resumes next week on Jan. 8 against Western, Jan. 10 against Mojave and Jan. 11 against Cheyene. Mojave and Cheyene are home games.