The Prairie Valley boy’s basketball season came to an end playing state power Graford in the bi-district round of the playoffs Monday night.
The Rabbits won 87-17 against the overwhelmed Bulldogs, who were making their first playoff appearance since 1996.
With that type of streak broken, any sort of success against the fourth ranked team in the state would have been gravy. Looking past the ranking, it was not a good matchup for Prairie Valley.
Graford across the board were taller and bigger than Prairie Valley and did its best to use that to its advantage.
The Rabbits employed a full-court trapping style press on defense and looked to get shots off near the basket and crash the offensive glass for rebounds.
For a little more than half the first quarter, the Bulldogs did well to compete with Graford, contesting shots inside, breaking through the press and getting shots off in the 15-foot area between the perimeter and paint.
The Rabbits were only up 6-2 and Prairie Valley was at least competing with them and making them work for what they got.
Unfortunately, that did not last long.
Graford ended the quarter on a 13-2 run to go up 19-4 and the Rabbits never looked back.
The press and physical play wore on the Prairie Valley ball handlers, who drew several fouls for getting hit to the floor, but ultimately could not keep up with the scoring pace of Graford once it got going.
It did not help when the Rabbits started having shooters coming off screens in the half court. Prairie Valley had trouble fighting through the big bodies setting those screens and Graford’s shooters made them pay.
The best thing for Prairie Valley were a few looks of overwhelming frustration from the players as the lead kept getting bigger. It never seemed like the team shut down or got too mad with each other outside of small moments.
Prairie Valley was able to execute some of the things on offense despite Graford paying extra special attention. Senior Isaac Yeargin spent most of the night with a defender pinned to his hip to prevent him from catching or shooting many 3-pointers. Still, he made one on the night and got fouled on another attempt.
Guards Tyler Winkler and Eli Croxton were able to mix it up enough in the lane to draw free throws from the aggressive Rabbit defenders despite both coming up short physically compared to the guys who were guarding them. By the end, Graford defenders were frustrated themselves and shaking their heads.
It wasn’t enough to make the game competitive with the final score being 87-17.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.