The two most heated rivals in the Verde Valley clashed on the court for the first of two meetings this season, and the battle all came down to the very end.

The Camp Verde Cowboys [7-16] and the Mingus Union Marauders [9-12] literally went shot-for-shot in their game at Camp Verde on Thursday, Jan. 17, in a fan-filled gymnasium. The game could have gone either way as the adrenaline of the players pumped up the crowd, but the Marauders took a lead in the final minutes that the Cowboys just couldn’t catch up to.

“We played extremely hard. I was very proud of my boys for that,” Cowboys Head Coach Dan Wall said. “It was a battle. We’ve been working on it and talking about it at practice and that was our No. 1 thing — to take care of the basketball and play as hard as we possibly could. I feel like my boys left it on the court.

“They played their hearts out. I couldn’t be more proud of my boys.”

For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Jan. 23, issue of the Camp Verde Journal.