For the second time in the past 15 days, the Bourgade Catholic boys basketball team was beaten by Paradise Honors High School on Tuesday, 76-46. It was the last home game of the year and Senior Night for the Golden Eagles.

Two weeks ago, when the Panthers (18-5, 9-1) were at full strength, they defeated the Golden Eagles (2-23, 0-10) by 65 points, 102-37.

However, on Tuesday, the Golden Eagles wanted to show that despite a talent gap on the two rosters, there is no substitute for playing hard, physical basketball.

BCHS head coach Shelton Simmons said his message to his team before the game was “just to play hard and don’t be intimidated by their size.”

“You can’t teach height,” Simmons said. “So, they have it and you just have to continue to play hard and let them know you ain’t going to back down. Sometimes when you smack the bully back, the bully see’s ‘oh they are going to fight hard’ and they stay in the game.”

BCHS did, in fact, fight hard. They committed over 20 fouls and took three charges, not giving the Panthers anything easy at the rim.

Taylor Millsap, the lone senior on the young Golden Eagles squad, started the game but suffered a concussion early in the first half and was sidelined for the rest of the game.

“It’s emotional,” Millsap said with a smile. “But at least I got to go out taking charges, which is what I’ve been doing all year.”

For the Panthers, this was the final game of their regular season and they had two goals coming into the contest. First, win. Second, stay healthy.

PHHS head coach Zach Hettel changed his starting lineup for this game, leaving his stars on the bench and letting the back-end of the rotation players play the majority of the minutes.

“Honestly, in the locker room we just talked about getting through this game with nobody injured,” Hettel said. “That was kind of the main focal point for us. We sat some guys and it was their Senior Night so we started some guys that we don’t normally start just to, kind of, let them enjoy their Senior Night as long as we could.”

PHHS has made the state playoffs in two straight seasons, including a 28-2 campaign last year when they made it all the way to the 2A state semi-finals where they lost to Whiteriver Alchesay, 67-61.

The Panthers have about a week before the start of the regional tournament and Hettel said there are a lot of things defensively that need to be fixed before they enter the postseason.

PHHS freshman guard Blessing Nwotite led all scorers with 13 points, while BCHS was led by freshman Jerome Smythe and junior Ismael “Ish” Alvizio, who each had 11.

The Golden Eagles will close out their season on Friday when they play at Odyssey Institute (6-12, 2-7).