Big Horns capture first win of the season

Romney’s record night lifts team to victory

By Brandon Walker

SHERIDAN – Michael Romney set a school record for free throws in one game on Jan. 23 and scored a game-high 31 points, helping Lone Peak earn its first victory of the 2020-2021 season, 54-36, over the Sheridan Panthers on the road. 

“It’s always a boost to morale to pull in the first win,” said Big Horns’ Head Coach John Hannahs. “These guys are capable of playing at a high level, and it’s gratifying to see them prove it to themselves.”

Romney converted 17 of 20 attempts at the line, shattering a six-year record set by Lone Peak graduate Trevor House in 2014. House recorded 15 free-throws in the 2014 contest against White Sulphur Springs. Romney joins the Lone Peak record books along with teammate Jackson Lang, who also set a school record for the Big Horns this season when earlier this month he converted seven 3-point field goals in one game.

“He wanted it more than the other guys, so he went and took it,” Hannahs said of Romney. “His offensive and defensive intensity helped raise us to the level we needed to get up big and take some of the pressure off.”

Along with his 31 points, Romney flirted with a triple-double, a stat line where an athlete accumulates double-digit totals in three different statistical categories in the same game. The senior added eight rebounds, eight steals and five assists to his performance.

The Big Horns took command of the game early and never let up, outscoring the Panthers in every quarter but the third. By halftime LPHS led 38-16, but the Panthers attempted a comeback coming out of the break. 

Sheridan won the third quarter by a seven-point margin, holding Lone Peak to just four points as a team, but it wasn’t enough to overturn the Big Horns’ large lead, which they added to when they won the final quarter of play, 12-9.

Seniors Mikey Botha and Nolan Schumacher chipped in seven and six points, respectively, for Lone Peak and overall nine athletes contributed on the score sheet for LPHS in the victory. 

“I always tell the boys to ‘be a threat,’” Hannahs said. “We have a number of players capable of going off on any given evening but our mindset needs to be that we can all score, otherwise we are too easy to defend.”

Hannahs also credited his team’s defensive effort and winning the rebounding battle as some of the keys to the Big Horn victory over the Panthers. “I think that we are a strong rebounding team,” he said. “We have either outrebounded or been even with the four teams we have played so far, and being a relatively small team that’s encouraging.”

Cade Cathey scored a team-high 14 points for the Panthers. He was aided by Kaiden Batzler who finished with nine points and Lane Poirier, who added six.

LPHS improved their overall record to 1-3 with the victory and evened their record on the road—1-1—this season. The Big Horns will aim to earn their first home victory of the season when they host the White Sulphur Springs Hornets tonight at 7 p.m.