The Railroaders were also looking for their eighth straight win, but none of those hopes were realized. Sparks suffered through a low-scoring second half and was saddled with a 58-51 loss to Dayton.
Not only was the SHS winning streak snapped but Sparks will settle for the third seed in the 3A North regional.
Saturday's loss to Dayton meant Sparks was swept by the Dust Devils this winter. Dayton had already beaten Sparks, 51-47 in the Rail City last month.
"We were better prepared as a coaching staff," Sparks coach Dick Lee said. "Our game plan was solid. The last time they led almost the whole time and we led almost the whole game this time."
Sparks played with energy and heart to start off the game. David Anduja juked the Dayton defense and dished the ball to Albert Claypool, who finished the play and gave Sparks a 15-9 lead out of the first quarter.
The teams stayed neck and neck in the second quarter even though the Dust Devils did their best to take control of the game. Jacob Bromley pulled down an offensive board and went to the stripe for Sparks. He sank both foul shots to put the SHS crew ahead by seven, 28-21. Dayton made the last two buckets of the half to cut the Sparks lead to five, 30-25.
While Sparks won the first half, it certainly did not win the second half, especially the third quarter. Dayton had a 12-2 run in the first six and a half minutes of the third quarter to take the lead from Sparks and go ahead 37-32. Anduja and Angel Guillen added buckets for the Railroaders to end the quarter. However, the Railroaders only scored seven points in the third, while Dayton doubled that with 14 to take a 39-37 edge to enter the final quarter.
Two quick buckets in the opening 40 seconds of the final quarter put Sparks on top, 41-39 but a 17-foot jumper from Tannar Wood tied the game up. Sparks never led again.
With six minutes left, Sparks had Dayton in foul trouble and in a double bonus situation but was unable to capitalize. The Railroaders also failed to earn second chance points from any offensive rebounds.
Lee said that while the team got a lot of offensive rebounds the fact that they didn't capitalize may have effected them.
"Emotionally, it could've brought the kids down," Lee said. "But eventually we have to put something in the bucket ... It was a game of spurts. And we had to withstand their runs."
Lee said the Dayton squad is good at what it does and changed its defenses which gave Sparks problems.
"We had them in a foul situation we liked and once we finally made free throws we couldn't get stops at the other end," he said.
Hans Meyer had a game-high 19 points for the Dust Devils and Jerrin Foster chipped in with 11.
Sparks played a six-man rotation and all six players scored for the Railroaders. Zack Quilici led the team with 13 and Claypool had 11.
"We stopped running," Lee said. "We're better when we run and we didn't push the ball up the court like we did in the first half."
The team was disappointed in the loss Lee said. "The seniors wanted to win the league."
Sparks will open the 3A regional tourney at Elko High School Thursday. The Railroaders' game time and opponent were undetermined by press time.
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