High performing Pahrump Valley girls basketball team rebuilds

One of Pahrump Valley’s most successful teams, the Trojans girls basketball team, is undergoing a year of rebuilding as the team played their first game on Tuesday night.

Last season, after the team made it to the state playoffs, the season ended right before the championship game. This year only five girls from the previous varsity team stayed on and added 13 new girls to the new team, as nine seniors graduated at the end of the school year.

“We’ve been pretty blessed the past few years. Now we’re real young and we’ve just gotta keep working harder,” Trojans head coach Robert Hopkins said. “Now that we played our first game, we now know for sure what we have to work on.”

For the last four years, Pahrump Valley has been advancing to the regional championship game and being eliminated in the state championship.

The last time the Trojans won a state championship was in 2007 when the Trojans won by two points.

In the Trojans’ first game against the Arbor View Aggies, a NIAA Class 5A team, the Trojans were fighting to stay competitive.

Holding the lead

The Trojans took the lead from the Aggies after sophomore Riley Saldana (20) scored two points to make it a 4-2 game. Pahrump Valley would hold the lead for four minutes before Aggies freshman Daniella Lee (10) sank a three-pointer to take the lead at 1:30 seconds in the first quarter.

After that, the Trojans would not see the lead again.

“I knew (Arbor View) was gonna be aggressive and that’s one thing we struggled with,” Hopkins said. “We really didn’t learn when we got in our half-court offense we scored.”

During the second quarter, the Aggies took advantage of a weakness the Trojans had, and that was getting the ball to the other side. The Aggies would intercept the ball after the Trojans would try to pass it. The Arbor View team would rack up roughly five points.

This is something the Trojans head coach said he’d address in practice - the team’s defense.

“We have to work on being able to get somebody to bring the ball up the floor,” Hopkins said. “And getting something set up once we get there.”

When the Trojans would start to get down the field, the team attempted to go for a long pass to Saldana under the net, but it would almost always go out of bounds. By the end of the first half, the Trojans were down 23-16.

The Trojans would have a strong end to the game as the team was down 42-25 at the start of the fourth quarter, but then Trojans senior Ryleigh Denton (13) would score a three-pointer, which boosted the team’s morale.

Junior Savannah Thompson (11) would score two back-to-back 2-point throws to bring it back to a ten-point game.

Thompson would hit the last two-pointer and the Trojans would lose 49-39.

“It’s a work in progress, we just hope to get better every game and every practice,” he said.

Upcoming

The Trojans have traveled to Reno Valley to play in the Brickhouse Classic where they will play three games Thursday through Saturday.

After they come back, the Trojans will play Coral Academy in Las Vegas on Dec. 12 at 6:30 p.m. This will be Pahrump Valley’s first league game of the season.

The next day, on Dec. 13, the girls will play their first game at home against Moapa Valley at 5 p.m.

Contact Jimmy Romo at jromo@pvtimes.com. Follow @JimmyRomo.News on Instagram.