By Dave Belcher

Moapa Valley Progress

The Lady Pirates basketball team returned to its full force last week with holiday vacations over and player illnesses somewhat healed. They also had their head coach back in action. Coach Jerry Swanson missed games over the break because he spent two and a half days in the hospital with pneumonia.

The girls took the bus to Clark High School last week where they played the Chargers and came away with a big win.

Moapa came out and held onto a 10-9 lead after the first quarter. They then fell behind headed into the half time locker room 23-21.

Ashley Noto pumped in 19 points to lead the Pirates in scoring. Malory Reid scored 14 and the Pirates shot 14-28 from the free throw line for fifty percent while Clark shot 4-13.

Moapa came out with 18 in the 3rd to open up a 5 point lead. This helped secure the game in the fourth quarter when the Pirates outscored the Chargers 12-8 to win the game 51-42.

Clark is now 4-5 on the season while the Lady Pirates are 5-11.

On Friday the Pirates traveled with the boys basketball team to Boulder City for the first league battle of the season. But this turned out to be no battle at all as the Eagles jumped out to a twenty point lead during the 1st quarter 23-3 overwhelming the Pirates.

During the 2nd quarter Boulder City only scored 14 points and the Pirates doubled their first quarter scoring output by scoring 6. The Pirates trailed 37-9 at half.

It didn’t get any better in the second half as the Pirates grand total for the second half was 5 points with 4 in the third quarter and only 1 in the 4th.

Malory Reid led the Pirates with 4 points. It was Koopman and Bird who paced the Eagles with 13 and 11 points.

The Eagles out-rebounded the Pirates and out-played Moapa as the Eagle bench saw plenty of time on the floor.

Boulder City is now 14-4 on the season and 1-0 in league play. The Pirates are 5-12 and 0-1 in league.