Beatty High School will be playing Round Mountain tonight at 6 p.m. for second place in the Class 1A Southern League in their last regular season game of the year.
To win, the Hornets know they have to go through one player, junior Alyssa Hanks.
Hanks will be the six-foot wall that Beatty will have to breach to get to the basket.
“She is the type of player other coaches have to prepare for and try and take away,” Knights coach Jake Topholm said.
“Round Mountain is a good team, for we played them earlier,” senior Hornets post Claudia Granados said.
She added that Hanks is “really hard to defend against, she finds the basket and so we will have to limit her shooting to the outside.”
The Knights were runners-up last year at the state finals mainly because of Hanks and her shooting.
“Alyssa is our best player and she makes us go,” Topholm said. “She is a leader on the floor and the other girls feed off her energy. In my opinion she is the best big girl in the south in our division. She is an all-around player and she can handle the ball, shoot from the inside and out, and is a good defender.”
The junior player was named co-player of the year with her teammate Hannah Swafford, and was an honorable mention to the all-state team.
This year Hanks is on the same path, leading her team in scoring nearly every game.
“I average about 12-to-16 points per game,” the young player said. “I scored 38 points against Jackpot at the beginning of the year at the Wells tourney and then I had a double-double against Tonopah this year, scoring 41 points and 26 rebounds.”
“That game against Tonopah was by far Hanks’ best game,” added the coach.
Her focus this week is Beatty and then the playoffs. The young player is not fazed by the hostile crowds. In fact, she seems to thrive in hostile territory.
“The opposing crowds don’t like me for some reason,” she said. “But I shake it off. The crowds will yell at me and say, ‘You suck Hanks’. But when I need to make a shot I focus on the goal.”
Hanks is a two-sport athlete who plays basketball and softball. She said that basketball was by far her favorite sport.
“I have been playing basketball since I was in elementary school,” she said.
Although Hanks is by far the number one player, you wouldn’t know it by talking to her. When she talks basketball, unless asked about herself, she talks team.
“This year we are working better as a team,” Hanks said. “As a team more girls are stepping up, shooting better and running plays better.”
Hanks is just as good with academics as she is on the court, sporting a 4.0 GPA, which makes her even more attractive to colleges.
“After high school, I plan to keep playing basketball in college,” she said. “Right now Feather River College in Quincy, California is talking to me. When I went to state last year the UNLV coaches also talked to us.”
When Hanks does go to college after next year, she wants to study sports medicine.
“I have always been interested in how the body works,” she said. “I want to leave Round Mountain but I want to stay in Nevada. If UNLV will take me I will live in Las Vegas.”
Hanks said she is preparing for college play for she knows in college she won’t be the big girl.
“I do drills for outside shooting and I have worked on my ball handling,” Hanks said. “There are times that I have even done point guard. I can put a move on a player if I have to. People are surprised at my outside shooting.”
Don’t be surprised if you see Hanks playing either at the University of Nevada, Reno or UNLV.
Contact Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com