Lone Pine boys’ basketball now 16-2
The Desert Scorpions rolled into Lone Pine Tuesday night with the hope of scampering back to Lancaster as the only undefeated basketball team in the Desert Mountain League. Didn’t happen. Lone Pine mangled the Scorps, 69-47, and followed it up by routing Silver Valley 58-43 the next night.
Last year, Lone Pine won both games against Desert by slim 2 and 3 point margins. This game only remained that close until the early second quarter, when Lone Pine’s Brad Greene made three consecutive baskets, putting the Eagles ahead 21-13. Greene dominated the quarter with four more buckets and nearly as many foul calls, some questionable.
Lone Pine’s Garrett Sullivan ends a fast-break with 2 points on Tuesday, dragging two Scorpions along for the ride. Photo courtesy: Murphy.
Ahead 34-22, Sullivan casually brought the ball down court, stood outside the 3-point line and put in one of his nothing-but-net buckets. Cappello followed with back-to-back scores in what was a very loud, very eloquent non-verbal statement. 41-22 at the half en route to a 69-47 win.
The next home game is Friday, Jan. 30 against Desert Christian. Lone Pine now stands alone atop the DML and is ranked 8th in the CIF’s Division 5A, Southern Section.
The stat line:
Ryan Cappello: 20 pts., 8 rebs., 5 assists, 1 steal, 3 blocks
Garrett Sullivan: 14 pts., 3 rebs., 4 assists, 4 steals, 5 blocks
Kishan Bhakta: 7 rebs., 1 steal
Adrien Gonzalez: 7 pts., 1 assist, 1 steal
Eddy Ivey: 4 pts.
Brad Greene: 24 pts., 8 rebs., 1 assist, 2 steals, 11 blocks
Area team highlights
The Lone Pine Lady Eagles scored a big 40-16 win over Mammoth on home court last Saturday with points, assists, rebounds and steals recorded for all coach Liz Stewart’s players. “We were still running hard at the end of the fourth quarter,” she said.
The Bishop Broncos got off to a rough High Desert League start with a 77-59 loss to Rosamond Tuesday on the road. Thomas Montoya and Sean Brown scored in double digits with 20 and 13 respectively. Bishop’s final pre-league action came last weekend against Orosi High in Hanford in the I Have a Dream Classic. The Broncos fell 82-75. Montoya, Brown and Ty Tucker were all in double digits.
The Lady Broncos took out the Rosamond Roadrunners 59-46, starting with a 16-10 lead after the first quarter. Maria Jimenez lead the scoring effort with 15, followed by Little Eva Lent, 12, Cienna Martinez, 11, Topah Scherer, 8, Tamia Shoshone, 7 and Sabrina Barlow with 6.
Bishop hosts California City Tuesday with the girls game slated for 6 p.m., the boys at 7:30 p.m.
The Big Pine Lady Warriors fell to the Baker Braves on the road Tuesday. The team, dressing just six players due to injuries, was led by Bailey Morgan with 8 pts., Adriana Melchor, Paaku’u Dewey, Lauren Simpson, Melissa Barlow and Nova Hardwick all scored 2.
The Big Pine Boys’ fell to Baker 60-28
The Mammoth Boys lost to DSilver Valley 48-43 on Tuesday at home. The Huskies dug themselves a 14-2 deficit after the first quarter and couldn’t recover. The team was led by Mario Rios with 16 points. Christian Orrick added 13.
