Eagles fight hard for win

(Jamie Clark/Boulder City Review) Ethan Speaker, Boulder City High School’s star basketball player, heads to the basket in the team’s final home game of the season Feb. 11. The Eagles defeated Virgin Valley 66-39.

Erasing a 5 point fourth-quarter deficit, Boulder City High School boys basketball team defeated Democracy Prep 69-62 on Tuesday, Feb. 18, advancing to the semifinals in its quest to capture the region championship.

The Eagles used a 21-11 run to end the game with a hard fought victory as they battled down to the final stretch.

Head coach John Balistere credited the Eagles’ perseverance and the defensive job of senior Jacob Sanford for the win.

“Democracy Prep is a really good team,” he said. “They have really good guards who can shoot threes and penetrate, and we just didn’t do a really good job defending them early on. Putting Jacob on their top guard in the fourth quarter was a really big adjustment for us and helped win us the game. He did a great job defensively. His size and length really created problems for them down the stretch.”

Leading the way offensively for the Eagles was junior forward Ethan Speaker, who poured in a game-high 39 points.

“Ethan showed tonight why he’s the best player in our league,” Balistere said. “They threw doubles teams at him and he played a great game.”

Contact Robert Vendettoli at BCRsports@gmail.com.

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