Desert Pines tops Silverado in Sunrise Region boys basketball playoffs

“My head is running right now,” Davis said following his team’s 78-70 road win over Silverado in the Sunrise Region quarterfinals.

It’s no wonder. A week ago, the Jaguars had clinched the Northeast Division title and a first-round home game in the Sunrise Region
playoffs.

On Friday, the school began investigating to see if it had used an ineligible player during the season. On Tuesday, the team was forced to forfeit three league wins, moving the Jaguars to the No. 3 seed in the Northeast and delaying the entire Sunrise tournament.

But a strong second-half showing on Wednesday put Desert Pines back where it expected to be all along: the Sunrise semifinals.

“It was just another one of those roadblocks,” Davis said. “We’ve had many roadblocks, but it boils down to persevering. You’re going to have these in life, so just stay with it and get through it.

“That’s what we did tonight. We lived to see another day.”

The Jaguars (19-9) play Eldorado (21-8) at 5:45 Thursday night at Liberty in the Sunrise semifinals.

The Jaguars trailed 36-34 at the half but held Silverado to 14-for-38 shooting in the second half (36.8 percent).

“At halftime that’s what we pretty much said: Focus on defense, don’t worry about offense,” Davis said. “Defense is going to take care of us, and it did.”

The Jaguars forced 10 second-half turnovers, turning them into 10 points. And they managed to turn up the defensive pressure without fouling.

Desert Pines had only three second-half fouls, and Silverado didn’t shoot a free throw after halftime.

“We only had three team fouls the whole second half, and we were pretty aggressive, so that was pretty good defense,” Davis said. “And we kept them off the boards, too.”

Desert Pines outrebounded Silverado 28-20 in the second half. The Jaguars had 23 second-chance points in the game.

Tyler Larson led the Jaguars with 12 rebounds, and teammate Cliff Harrell had 10.

Wade Collie had 28 points and 23 rebounds for Silverado (24-5). The rest of the Skyhawks grabbed 17 boards.

All five Desert Pines starters scored in double figures, led by Pierre Jackson’s 22 points.

Harrell scored 14, Larson and Reggie Shaw 13 each and Chris Perry 12.

Collie had 17 points at halftime before Desert Pines focused on slowing him.

“We said we were going to focus on him,” Davis said. “That was pretty much Chris Perry’s responsibility, and he came up big.”

James Lata added 21 points for the Skyhawks.