Mountain Pointe was somewhat shorhanded as it warmed up to face Chaparral on the road on Wednesday night

Short-handed in standouts and in size with 6-10 Jalen Graham and 6-8 DeAndre Henry not available. Not to be worried on this night if one was a Mountain Pointe fan. Khalid Price and J'Saan Strover took care of that.

Price dropped treys all nignt -- eight of them in a 41-point effort - and Stover supplied offense inside as No. 8 Mountain Pointe roared past No. 2 Chaparral, 79-64, in a 6A non-region contest.

Price, a senior guard and captain who helped the Pride reach the 6A finals last year, sank 8 of 13 threes and collected 25 of his 41 points in the second half. Mountain Pointe trailed 43-30 a couple minutes in to the third period, but with Price and Stover taking charge found itself leading 53-50 going to the fourth period.

Perhaps it had something to do with Mountain Pointe ((17-6, 10-4 power-ranking games) having to be brought to the floor by one of the officials rafter the 10-minute halftime buzzer expired. 

"I wasn't disappointed so much with our play, just our energy," Mountain Pointe coach Kirk Fauske said. "I thought we needed to turn up the intensity a bit."

Price scored 13 points in the third period, making three threes and Strover

split his points almost evenly over both halves with 15 for the night. Strover's presence in the lane where he did all his scoring seemed to allow Price room to operate from the perimeter. Some of Price's threes were well beyond the line, but on target just the same.

"Khalid's been working hard on his shot," Fauske said. "A little while back he shot like 5 for 2. He worked on it hard since then. He told he'd never shoot like that again."

Strover, a 6-4 senior showed a fine presence inside with the taller post players the Pride possess idle. He made 6 of 12 shots."

"I think Strover is one of the best downhill players in the state," Fauske said. "Overall we did a better job in the second half. Got more offensive rebounds thanks to Ray (Toombs) work on the boards. Toombs added 12 points, 10 in the second half. 

Chaparral (17-6, 12-3 prg), which battled some foul trouble in the tightly called game, led nearly all of the first three quarters before Mountain Pointe's late third quarter and fourth-quarter prowess took over.  Jordan Josephs led balanced scoring for Chaparral with 16 points. Micah Burno had 14 ( 13 in the first half) and Alem Huseinovic and Blaise Threatt added 11 points each.

Chaparral (6-1) is chasing Pinnacle (6-0) for the Northeast Valley Region title with a handful of games left. Mountain Pointe (5-1) is tied with Desert  Vista (5-1) for the Central Region's top spot.