PV finishes unbeaten in league
Vikings and Panthers now await Northern Section playoff seedings
The Chico High and Pleasant Valley boys basketball teams closed out their regular season schedules Friday night at Pleasant Valley in a battle for Chico pride, with the stands packed full of students from both schools. The Vikings entered having locked in the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Athletic League and the Panthers had already secured the No. 2 seed.
PV won the first two games of the regular season against Chico, and Friday night the Vikings secured the three-game sweep of the Panthers with a 53-36 victory at Varley Gym.
“Both (league) games we didn’t start out really well and Chico came at us hard,” said PV head coach Tim Keating. “Abe does a really good job getting his team ready defensively and once again they kept us at bay that first 5-6 minutes. We just got to play better on the come-outs. We’ve had a lot of games where we’ve started the game well and we’re not starting as well against Chico. Our defense did its job and their defense did its job too.”
Before the game Keating mentioned that his areas of focus in the final regular season game were working on offensive and defensive execution, working on defensive breakdowns and communicating on defense consistently. While the Vikings’ defense held up throughout, it was their offense that struggled in the first quarter.
Chico led 11-8 after the first quarter, a quarter that saw two lead changes, a tie and the Panthers lead get as high as 9-4.
The Vikings scored the first five points of the second quarter on a layup by Gavin Garretson, a free throw by Hayden Rick, and a steal and layup by Isiah Fortune. When PV took a 13-11 lead with 6:20 left
in the second quarter, it did not let it up for the remainder of the game.
The Vikings led 25-17 at halftime after outscoring the Panthers 17-6 in the second quarter and extended their lead to 40-26 after three quarters. PV led 38-26 entering the fourth quarter and extended its lead to 45-28 with 5:17 to play, but Chico would not give up and trimmed the lead to 47-36 on back-toback 3-pointers by Johnny Padilla. After Padilla’s 3-pointers, the Vikings went on a 10-0 run to take their biggest lead of the game at 17 points on the final basket of the game.
Luke Kremer led PV with 16 points, with eight points coming in each half. Cam Bussey had eight points, Bryson Snelling had seven points and Gabe Garretson had six points. Kremer and Snelling had nine rebounds, three steals and two blocks each.
Padilla led Chico with
nine points, on three 3-pointers in the second half. Rashad Samuels had eight points and Odin Nielsen had seven points.
Before the game, Chico High coach Abraham Simmons stressed the importance of sharp play all 32 minutes, something all coaches are pushing late in the season. In the Panthers’ first EAL matchup with the Vikings on January 19 at Chico High, Chico led by 12-5 after
the first quarter and 1817 at halftime, but the Vikings outscored the Panthers 25-16 in the second half to secure that win.
With Northern Section playoffs up next, both teams will look to find a way to play a full 32 minutes in order to make a run, as the defending state champion Vikings look to make another run.
Pleasant Valley (24-4, 10-0 EAL) and Chico High (19-7, 7-3 EAL) now await
Saturday’s Northern Section playoff seeding meeting for the announcement of the NSCIF playoffs. Division III playoffs will be held Feb. 17 and 22 at the highest seed’s home court.
For a full list of Northern Section playoff dates visit https://www.cifns. org/guidelines-playoffsDivisions-archives/ playoff-center/playoffcalendar/22-23_Playoff_ Calendar_UPDATED.pdf.