MVHS Athlete Scores Big

By AMY DAVIS

Moapa Valley Progress

In the last 100 years at Moapa Valley High School, it has only been done by five people; the last time being 27 years ago.

On Tuesday Jan. 29, MVHS junior Lucas Walker scored his 1000th point in his high school basketball career. It happened right after the start of the second quarter in a game against Virgin Valley High School played in Mesquite.

The rivalry between these two schools is not a secret to anyone in either valley. Both sides of the bleachers were filled with cheering fans. But most of the spectators had no idea that they were witnessing history in the making.

“He told me not to make a big deal out of it,” said Kevin Walker, MVHS head coach and father to Lucas. “But he did want the game ball. Virgin Valley was kind enough to let us play the game with our ball so that Lucas could keep it.”

“It is amazing!” said Lucas’ mom Diana Walker. “Lucas is a goal-setter. Even when he was really tiny he had this list of goals; and on that list was 1000 points.”

Diana explained that the reason that Lucas had the 1000 points goal was because his father was the last Moapa Pirate to make that career achievement.

In 1993 Jeff Lamping and Kevin Walker were on the boys Varsity basketball team at Moapa Valley. They are on the short list of men that have ever achieved the goal.

When asked how Lucas’ accomplishment made him feel, not only as a coach but as a dad, Kevin responded, “I am proud of him! He shoots about 120,000 shots a year. He works hard.”
Coach Walker says that hard work, consistency and determination are what got Lucas to this point.

“Lucas is always working on ball handling, which a lot of kids don’t like to do,” he said. “In the off season most kids in small schools like to play three sports. He doesn’t. He plays basketball year-round and takes probably 10 thousand shots a month.”

The second leading scorer on the current MVHS team is Cameron Reese who averages about 14 points a game. He has started for two seasons now and has a career high of 460 points. Coach Walker estimates that he may end the season with 530 or so.

Lucas, 16, is about 5’10 and a half. When he began as a freshman he saw more of the bench than the court.
“I was the young guy and didn’t see a lot of playing time,” Lucas said. “I averaged about 15 points a game.”

Today he averages about 22 points per game. Though in the game against Virgin Valley he scored 25 and another 24 against Lincoln county later in the week (those were for Kobe Bryant, he says).

When asked how he felt about this milestone, Lucas said, “It feels good, but I think we are all happy that we got the win at the big rivalry game, so that is the most important thing tonight.”