Home is where wins are for Wildcats

Las Vegas High boys basketball coach Jason Wilson closed his eyes, clicked his heels together three times ... and came away with a victory on Thursday night.

“For us, there’s no place like home,” Wilson said after his team’s 70-61 home win over Chaparral.

Hasaan Henderson had 19 points and seven rebounds for the Wildcats, who improved to 5-0 at home in Northeast League play.

Unfortunately for Las Vegas, things haven’t been as good on the road, where the Wildcats are 0-4 in league play.

“We haven’t won on the road, and we can’t figure out how to get that done, but boy, we’re playing pretty good at home,” Wilson said.

“And we really, really needed this one tonight. The kids were starting to lose confidence in themselves.”
Las Vegas (14-6) had lost three of four, including a 64-62 decision at Eldorado on Wednesday.

“This one stopped the bleeding,” Wilson said.

Las Vegas used strong second-quarter defense to take control Thursday, holding Chaparral (11-12, 5-4 Northeast) to 3-for-20 shooting in the quarter to lead 41-30 at the half.

“We needed this one,” said senior Tyree Anderson, who had 17 points, five rebounds and four assists. “Our last couple games we’ve been struggling.”

Anderson said a team meeting helped set the team up for the key win.

“We had a talk today, we had a big meeting and let everybody get stuff off their chest, and we came out and played hard,” Anderson said. “This is the best we’ve played as a team today.”

Chaparral cut its deficit to 46-42 on a 3-pointer by Chris Goodloe with 2:59 left in the third quarter, but a three-point play by Tanner Chauncey pushed the lead back to seven, and the Cowboys didn’t get closer than five points the rest of the way.

Chauncey added 13 points off the bench for Las Vegas. Goodloe had 20 points and eight rebounds, and Zachary Kirschbaum had 19 points and 12 boards for Chaparral.

The victory put Las Vegas into a four-way tie for second in the Northeast with Chaparral, Valley, Las Vegas and Rancho. Eldorado is a game back at 4-5.

“We just have to maintain momentum,” Wilson said. “We’ve got a brutal schedule coming up. We have to figure out a way to win on the road.”