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SoCal Prep & High School Report

Some Really High Desert News: Trona
Beats Mammoth in Overtime--(February 3, 1998)

It's not often that we feature the Desert Mountain League here at SoCalHoops. But it's in the Southern Section of the CIF, and thus really belongs in SoCal. We don't know much about the teams playing in this league, which includes Big Pine, Boron, Desert Christian/Lancaster, Lone Pine, Mammoth and Trona, all schools that dot U.S. Highway 395 along the eastern border of the Sierras and the desert, but we have been getting some fairly regular updates on some of them. And here's a report on Friday night's game between Trona and Mammoth, which proves there's more to do in Mammoth than just ski and mountain bike.

On Friday, the Mammoth High boys' basketball team managed to keep Trona center Erik Enriquez bottled up for the first half. But the 6'-5' senior broke out in the second half in leading the Trona Tornadoes to a 61-60 overtime victory over Mammoth in Desert Mountain League. Enriquez scored all of his game-high 23 points in the second half after being held scoreless in the first half. It was an early fourth quarter dunk by Enriquez that sparked the Trona comeback. "In the fourth quarter, we did a much better job of getting the ball inside," Trona Coach Jerry Storts said. The Tornadoes are now 7-8 overall and 2-4 in Desert Mountain League play. They forced the overtime when Ian Ramey hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer. In the overtime, Enriquez scored the game winner in the paint with 1.3 seconds left to play. Enriquez also finished with 12 rebounds and eight blocks. Mammoth and Trona played the game even-up to a 13-13 tie at then end of the first but then Mammoth outscored Trona 20-8 in the second quarter to take a 32-21 halftime lead. In the third quarter, both teams scored 11 points, but then in the fourth, Tona outscored Mammoth 20-11 to tie the game and send it into overtime.

For Mammoth the high scorers were Smart and Tuops who both had 17 points each, followed by Janny with 1, Moutin 6, Miller 5, Lambert 11, Mellenger 6, and Howard 7. For Trona the scorers were Raney with 6, Darling 12, Sat 4, Johnson 12, Enriquez 23, Matheny 2, and Franklin with 2 points.

MammothTrona will hosted Boron (which probably arrived by 20 mule-team) yesterday. We don't have the results of that one yet but when we get it, we'll let you know.