PHS see’s its season end
The Porterville High Basketball team seemed to continue where it left off Friday night in the Division 2 section championship game as a lackluster start led to a blowout 61-43 loss to Beaumont High School in a Division 4 state playoff game in front of their home crowd.
It was all Beaumont from the beginning as they used a 10-0 run to open the game, getting buckets from Vince Tracy Capuras, Josiah Morgan, Payton Joseph and Adrian Farias. Cam Haynes got PHS on the board at the 3:21 mark of the first quarter with a 4 foot jumper, but the Cougars came back to score 4 of the next 6 points to build a 14-4 lead after the first quarter.
Jake Kroutil got the scoring started for PHS in the 2nd quarter with a 5 foot jumper, but Beaumont scored the next 10 points, including trifectas by Joseph and Capuras to take a commanding 24-6 lead. Odsathers putback layup made it 24-8 and then Sebastian Mascorro buried a 3 to make it 26-11 but Beaumont would score 6 of the next 8 points to take a 32-13 lead into the halftime locker room. PHS, who scored only 8 points in the second half of the section championship game had now been outscored 65-21 in its last 4 quarters of basketball.
Andrew Moody got a quick layup for PHS to start the 2nd half, and then Odsather scored on a strong post move to make it 32-17. However Beaumont answered with an 8-0 run to take it’s largest lead of the game 40-17, and would go on to lead 48-23 at the end of 3.
PHS played hard but couldn’t climb back into it, although they did outscore Beaumont 20-13 in the fourth quarter, it was far too late to advance to the final round.
Odsather ended up leading all Panther scorers with 12 while Cooper
Fish scored 9, all in the 4th quarter, and Moody contributed 8.
PHS see's its season end with an overall record of 23-11. Their season accomplishments included winning the Polly Wilhelmsen Tournament, winning their 5th consecutive EYL title and advancing to the Division 2 championship game.