Streaking Vandals look to lock up playoff seeds

The Eureka County high girls basketball team continued its dominance of IV Northern East conference opponents with a pair of convincing home wins over the weekend.

Before the girls continued conference play however, they took care of business when they briefly stepped out of conference and took out Round Mountain on the road on Thursday 52-30.

The first place Lady Vandals returned to Eureka on Friday, taking down Wells 45-21 before beating Jackpot 70-46 the next day.

The Eureka girls ran their record to 22-2 overall and 9-0 on conference with the three wins in as many days.

First place and the number one seed in the IV Northern zone playoffs will be on the line Friday night in Eureka on senior night when second place McDermitt (13-4, 8-1) comes to town. If the Lady Vandals knock off the Bulldogs they will clinch the top seed in next weeks zone tournament in Reno.

Eureka caps off its regular season on Saturday at Tonopah.

Eureka County Boys

Playing in perhaps its most crucial three game stretch of the year, the Eureka County High boys basketball team came away with two wins in three tries from Thursday to Saturday last week.

As if three games in three days wasn’t enough, the Vandals played a little extra basketball when they survived in overtime at Round Mountain last Thursday 75-64. Trevor Merritt led the way for Eureka with 22, while Paul Padilla poured in 18 and Nick Hornberger 13.

The boys returned home on Friday against Wells and couldn’t overcome a fourth quarter drought, falling to the Leopards 63-47. The Vandals entered the fourth quarter with a one-point lead, but Wells finished the game on a 21-4 run to steal the win.Merritt finished with 13, Hornberger 10 and Josh Plaskett 9.

The Vandals got back on track on Saturday when they defeated Jackpot 79-60 at home.

Merritt capped off his impressive week with a 23-point performance, and led his team all week in scoring. Hornberger dropped in 17 points and Jaiden Hicks finished with 16.

The wins improve the Vandals to 10-14 overall and 4-5 in conference play.

Eureka holds a strong two game lead in the divisions fourth and final playoff spot with two games remaing this week. They take on McDermitt at home on senior night on Friday before traveling to Tonopah on Saturday.