Desert Dog A.J. Gaines scores over a Sunking during the Dogs 124-113 loss Saturday evening at the Rising Star Resort. Gaines led the Dogs with 34 points.
Photo by Lou Martin
The Nevada Desert Dog professional basketball team continued their recent Jekyll & Hyde play again on Frida y and Saturday night at the Rising Star Sports Ranch. The Dogs played a great game Friday defeating the first place Yakima Sunkings 115-108 before getting blown out 124-113 Saturday night. Jelan Kendrick led a well balanced attack Friday with 39 points on 18-23 shooting from the field. Forward A.J Gaines added 26 points for the win. The Dogs led 54-50 at the break behind Kendrick’s 18 points. The Sunkings regained the lead 81-79 after 3 periods before the Dogs put up 36 points in the final period for the win. Dog Terrell Evans went 9-10 from the line to seal the win.
Saturday’s 124-113 loss to the Sunkings was a complete reversal as the Dogs could not sustain a rally all night against the long ball shooting Yakima squad. The Dogs jumped out to an early 24-23 lead behind 10 points from Gaines but were outscored 14-6 in the last three minutes of the period. The Dogs would not lead the rest of the way. Despite 20 points at the break from Gaines, the Desert Dogs trailed 74-60 after one half of play. The Sunkings put up 9 three-balls in the first half to keep the Dogs at bay. The Sunkings wasted no time increasing their lead to 80-60 to begin the second half on two long three-balls. The Dogs made a short rally behind Gaines to cut the Sunkings lead to 91-79 midway through the third period. The period ended with the Dogs down 103- 87. Despite urging from the hometown crowd, the Desert Dogs could not rally losing 124-113. Gaines led all scorers with 34 points followed by reserve Spencer Mathis with 22 points and diminutive guard Jonathon Lloyd with 21 points. Kendrick seemed out of sync with only 7 points for the game. The Dogs record fell to 9-15 going into games with the Kentucky Thoroughbreds. The Kentucky squad comes to down on Wednesday and Thursday with all games beginning at 6:30pm.
