Pahrump boys basketball 0-2 early in the seaosn

The Trojans boys basketball team is off to a slow start this season as the team has yet to walk off the court with a league win at the start of the season.

Last week, the Trojans started their season with two league games against some of last year’s regional playoff teams. To start the season, the Trojans faced off against the No. 1 team in their league last year, The Meadows.

The Trojans would struggle to keep up with the Mustangs in their game as the Meadows would win by over double the points for Pahrump Valley’s team. The final score was 67-32. Previously, the Trojans started their season with a non-conference game against Chaparral, a Class 4A school, in a close match.

After their most recent game against the Coral Academy of Science Falcons, the Trojans are going to be running a lot of drills.

Second loss

The Trojans traveled to Henderson where they played against the Falcons, a team that took away their playoffs seat last season, for Pahrump’s second league match.

Last year, the Trojans were able to secure a win early in the season against Coral Academy in a 48-47 victory. But this year, the Falcons were not going to let that happen again. The Falcons would take their win early in the season this time, and by a ten-point margin.

During the game, the Falcons took the lead early and never gave it back. The Trojans had a key opportunity to hold their lead before junior Keir Sheppard (1) scored the first two points for the Trojans. Moments before, Sheppard received the ball with nearly an empty Falcons court, but a Falcons player was able to intercept the ball and lose out on a Trojans layup.

Then, Falcons senior Jayden Arenas (10) would score a three-pointer to take the lead 3-2, and Falcon’s senior Kaleb Elliott (4) would follow his teammate with another three-pointer.

The Falcons were able to guard off every opportunity from the Trojans from the start of the match. The Trojans would make it to the Falcons’ side of the court, pass the ball around but Pahrump Valley was unable to find a gap in their defense to take the shot before losing the ball.

By the end of the first quarter the Falcons were able to make a 13-10 lead. The Trojans were behind three after the first three quarters.

The Trojans had a competitive end of the third quarter and into the start of the fourth where Trojans sophomore Jack Toth would sink a three-pointer to tie the game with 7:30 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.

There was good communication from the Trojans as junior Alejandro Lozano (10) would drive the ball forward and passed to Tramaine Burras (13) to score a layup. Both players were the teams’ highest scoring players of the game. But after this, the Trojans would lose sight of the end.

In the end, the Pahrump team would lose 50-40.

Back to basics

During the match, as soon as the Trojans were able to get past the half-court line, the team would often not make it any further before they received a traveling violation.

“We gotta get better in practice and start boxing out,” Trojansboys basketball head coach Braydon Preston said. “We did everything we could, found the bits and pieces that worked together here and there and then we just can’t get to the finish line.”

There were a lot of points left on the table for the Trojans during the game after many free throws, layups and ball possession was unsuccessful.

“We’re gonna tighten up practice, go back to basically fundamentals,” Preston said. “Get back to square one and then we’ll work from there.”

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