BY JOE SANTORO
Special to the Appeal
RENO - The Galena Grizzlies threw a season-ending party Saturday night.
The school honored all senior cheerleaders, boys and girls basketball players as well as their parents. The athletes and their parents walked through a black-and-gold archway of balloons, smiled and posed for pictures. Yes, a good time was had by all.
"It was a fun night," smiled senior Luke Babbitt.
And, oh yeah, the Grizzlies boys also played a basketball game, too.
The Grizzlies, now 17-12 overall, wrapped up the regular season with a 77-30 victory over the out manned McQueen Lancers. Galena, the defending Northern 4A Regional champ, will open this year's regional tournament against Damonte Ranch Tuesday night at Galena at 7 p.m.
"It was just a real fun game," Galena coach Tom Maurer said of the tension-free victory over McQueen.
The victory wrapped up the Grizzlies third consecutive High Desert League regular season title in a row. Galena finished 11-1 in league play and is 35-1 over the past three years.
"Every now and then you have a game where you can just go out and win and not get anything out of it," said Maurer, who opened the game with five seniors on Senior Night who normally do not start - Garrett Womack, Brad Bosse, John Metzger, Oscar Nunez and Jake Hess. "We wanted to use this game to work on things and I think we accomplished that.
"As a team we worked on defense and we held them to 30 points. Everybody worked on individual things. Even Luke worked on using his right hand."
Babbitt, the state's all-time career scoring leader, didn't step onto the court until the second quarter. The 6-foot-8 Nevada recruit ended up playing just 14:30, scoring 25 points with eight assists, three rebounds and two steals.
"We just wanted to go out and get everybody involved," said Babbitt, who is now 112 points short of 3,000 for his career, according to Maurer.
With Babbitt and most of the regular starters on the bench in the first quarter, McQueen jumped out to a 10-7 lead on a 3-pointer by Rollins Stallworth five minutes into the game. That was the end of the Lancers' fun for the rest of the evening as Galena went on a 36-8 run over the next 11 minutes to take a 43-18 halftime lead.
"We got to see a lot of guys play a lot of minutes and I think we learned a few things about some guys," Maurer said. "We'll be able to use that next week (in the regional tournament)."
Babbitt played a nearly flawless game.
The power forward came off the bench for the start of the second quarter and played point guard for the first four minutes, dishing out five assists.
"I've brought the ball up at times before," Babbitt said. "But that's the most I've ever done that."
He was almost unstoppable, finding Scott Bristol and Brad Bosse once each and John Metzger twice for easy layups. He also found a wide open Jake Mansfield for a 3-pointer. With Babbitt at the point, the Grizzlies went on an 18-0 run over a three-minute stretch in the second quarter.
"I just like the ball in my hands," said Babbitt, who also scored 14 points in less than six minutes in the second quarter. "Whether I'm shooting or passing, it doesn't matter. But I enjoyed it."
Babbitt made seven of his eight shots for the game. He finished the night by draining a 25-foot, 3-pointer with 4:51 to play to give Galena a 69-20 lead.
Nunez added 10 points and Womack and Bosse scored eight each as nine Grizzlies scored. McQueen, which had just eight players, was led by Kyle May's nine points.
"Everybody played well," said Babbitt, whose Galena teams went 44-4 in High Desert League games during his four-year career. "Now we need to work hard in practice and get ready for the regionals."