lsrv to state

By Kirk Hanna
Times staff writer
The 1A west regional tournament came early on Saturday morning when the Little Snake River Valley School boys basketball team tipped off at 9:30 a.m. against the Ten Sleep Pioneers.
The two teams were faced with must-win situations in order to reach Casper and the state tournament. Fortunately for Carbon County, the Rattlers held off a late run by the Pioneers and won 49-47.
“We’ve made it where we’ve wanted to,” head Rattler coach Paul Pestrud said of his team’s first berth to the state tournament in almost five years.
The first half of the game saw the Pioneers jump to an early lead, forcing Pestrud to take a timeout. Then Logan Adams and Ty Crawford got to work. Crawford led the Rattlers with tough defensive steals and fed the ball to Adams for easy jump shots in the lane. LSRV had fought back to claim a 30-22 lead at halftime.
Both teams countered the other in the third by scoring 11 points each, making for an exciting fourth quarter of action.
Ten Sleep started to come back at times, but seemed to kill their own momentum when the Pioneers coach called a timeout after Ten Sleep scored big baskets. The timeouts allowed the Rattlers to settle down and draw up a press-breaker play.
“We had a lot of turnovers that were unforced, that should’ve hurt us,” Pestrud said of his team throwing the ball away or being called for traveling on five consecutive possessions. “Our defense had some key stops,” the head coach said of how the Rattlers were able to negate the turnovers.
The final few minutes had Cody Foster and Zach Herold combine with Adams to scrape out the win at the free throw line. With 22 seconds remaining in the game, the Rattlers led by four, but Hunter Birningham made it a one-point lead with a 3-pointer of his own. Herold was then fouled and put on the line for two charity shots and only 5 seconds left. Herold made the first, but missed the second. The ball was rebounded by the Pioneers and passed ahead to Birningham who had a good look at the basket for the win, but air-balled the final shot of his career, giving the Rattlers the thrilling win.
Herold finished the game with 14 points, including a “few big, key shots,’ Pestrud said. Adams also scored 14 points, but Foster led the team with 17 points.
The Rattlers open their state tournament run with a familiar face: fellow Carbon County foe Saratoga. The game is scheduled to tip off at 4:30 p.m. at the Casper College gym.
“Our program isn’t quite at the elite level,” Pestrud said, “but we’re coming back.”