OCR Text |
Show . m -m fe. Miners slouch through final region games in ugly style Park City olays one naif with Lehi, then... by RANDY HANSKAT Record staff writer The final week of the Park City High School basketball team's regular season began Thursday night, Feb. 18 in Happy Valley with a showdown with the Lehi Pioneers. The week was an important one for the team, as it tried to build momentum momen-tum heading into this week's Region Nine tournament. Momentum was not built, however. If anything it was a bit mashed by a horrendous week. Against Lehi, the Miners played one half well, one half poorly, and wound up on the short end of a 75-61 drubbing. drubb-ing. "The kids played really well at times," Miner Coach Paul Willard said, "but at others they played so inconsistently, so out-of -control." Out-of-control meant 23 turnovers, a monstrous number, especially since the Park City inside game was not clicking again. When you're getting get-ting the ball inside a few more turnovers tur-novers are excusable since your shooting percentage will most likely be higher. "We didn't take care of the basketball," basket-ball," Willard said. "Some of those turnovers were at very critical times." Statistically, Park City didn't play that poorly, except for turnovers. The Miners shot 43 percent from the field, hitting 20 of 47 shots. Lehi was no better at 22 of 51. Five of their field goals were three pointers, however, compared to two for Park City. The Pioneers also shot more free throws. They hit 26 of 36, while Park City was 19 of 22. , Park. City started off well , on Lehrs "home court." The team 'was taking the ball right to the basket and opened a 7-1 lead in the first three minutes. With 20 seconds left it was 15-5 Park City, 15-9 at the quarter. The opening of the second quarter Out-of-control meant 23 turnovers, tur-novers, a monstrous number, especially since the Park City inside in-side game was not clicking again. was more of the same, as Park City kept going inside. Jason Schlenske was a strong force rebounding. With 5:26 left in the half the score was 19-13 Park City. If they could continue con-tinue the inside game it looked as if a Miner win was a good possibility. With 2:48 left the score stood at 27-19 for the Miners. Park City was getting away with increasingly more turnovers, but that ended in the last two minutes, as the Pioneers capitalized on the giveaways and pulled even at 29-29. The half ended at 31-29 Park City. Right off the bat in the second half Lehi took over. The Pioneers tied the game, then went ahead 33-31 at 6:38, never to trail again. The Pioneers had a habit of nailing three-pointers just when they needed need-ed them. With just under four minutes left in the third quarter a bomb put Lehi up 42-36. The lead stayed much the same from there on. At the quarter it was 49-43 Lehi. Jeff Keye and Brett Benson, who were the game's top scorers with 16 points each, then tried to bring Park City back. Keye hit some timely out-.side out-.side shots, while Benson gave it his all inside. But Park City had gotten away from its interior game and could get no closer than 50-47. From there, the Lehi lead quickly swelled again, fueled by tons of Miner turnovers. With three minutes left it was 60-49 Lehi, and the end was in sight. The final was 75-69. , The loss dropped Park City to 5-4 in Region Nine play, and put a pall over both the team and the Miner fans. It was a pall which carried over to Friday night's Grantsville game. 1 O " . If ' - "Nfi Brett Benson arches a three-pointer, a la Larry Bird, towards the basket against Grantsville. A M) & u v y - r n 'ro 1..- ttf c .. Larry Winterer (left) and Matt Ott (35) tried to make things difficult for the Lehi offense. A: A f3:1 ' W n if! I ..j.tr,? 1 jj t ' , : y i Jr I m S : ' ...Can't hit broad side of next night against lowly by RANDY HANSKAT Record staff writer Ever heard of the gang who couldn't shoot straight? Well, the Park City High School boys basketball basket-ball team could fit into that heading very nicely after Friday night's game against Grantsville. In fact, they couldn't shoot at all, straight or otherwise. Playing a team which had not won a single Region Nine game this season, Park City shot a scary 32 percent from the field, and gave Grantsville its first win 57-56. The Cowboys had been the whipp ing boy of the other Region Nine teams up until Friday night. This night they made the Miners the whipping boy. The game score should have been much higher for Grantsville but with the win in sight t??i Y' -' lh I if 'L. -t ..... . f f" -- '-- "- - nnmnr r n n i inn mill i i nifcl 11 1 1' 'ii Jason Sparks of Grantsville looks at the camera while irritating ir-ritating a Brett Peretti shot. PC hosts region tourney t I-;i;;ht l-.tms are plaj nig at the Park City High School through Friday, of v hich U o top i j ve w ill move on to the state 2A basketball tournament at WitT 5-t :e f.' irch 2 5, Play, opened Wednesday, but press dca-Jl.t'.e' pii'ctu.V.l covcr.-t;cii!itiI next week's paper. - i a (J t! f c. !.t teams come from Region Nine, with the other two com-! ing from Iifion 13. The two Regionl3 teams, San Juan and Grand Coun-' ty iMoah) bis pl.iing in the Region Nine tournament because their;; isolated U ijtions riirke it necessary for those schools to have a variable f, set of league rules. ', Wasatch is the top seed out of Region Nine, with an 8-2 record. Lehi is second at 7 3. Park City and Union are tied for third at 5-5. Then comes Morj in at 3 7 anl Granliville at 1-9.. WcLu'v.' ty's p.mies eei)ed at 1:30 p.m. with San Juan against? Morgan. At 3,:!.(J it was Lehi against Union. At 6:00 p.m. it was MoabI nf-mrt Pai k (My, Then at 8:00 p.m. came Wasatch and Grantsville, " V. !;:' t s ft o'i !!,ece f- t pnn s are guaranteed one of the five spots to! inv "i to th.- i ' t-.'nej'. The (it spot will come from a consolation! x Win' !mi V. v, y On is hi, ma t Mt Kit they choked a bit and allowed Park City a shot at forcing the game into overtime. The free throws didn't fall, however, and the game was lost. In reality, the game should have been a Grantsville blowout. The only thing that kept Park City in it at all was poor Grantsville shooting coupled coupl-ed with lots of turnovers. But in the end the team which had earned it won. "We didn't deserve to win the game," Miner Coach Paul Willard said. "We would have been lucky to get to overtime." It was the worst shooting night of the season for Park City, Willard said. More appalling than the 32 percent per-cent overall field goal shooting average was the story from inside the key. Park City took 33 of its 63 shots from inside the key, but could only make 11. That gave the team a J ill bo c ' ! n.infJ by I. v if Pnk Ci'y i!.s it , c; ' rl - Inn' ..I at i a barn the Grantsville 33 percent average on shots which are mostly under eight feet. Outside it was even worse. Park City was nine of 30 out there, 30 percent. per-cent. "It was an ugly situation," Willard commented. "It was a continuation from the night before. The kids could not get things going." One good point was ballhandling. Unlike the previous night, Park City committed few turnovers against the Cowboys. But it didn't make much difference according to Willard. "We didn't turn it over, but we didn't do anything with it, either." Some will look to Brett Benson as the goat of the game. It was Benson who was on the line with one second left shooting two free throws which could have sent the game into overtime. over-time. He made the first, and the se- photos by Randy Hanskat cond rolled around the rim and out, leaving Park City a point short. But actually, everybody on the team had a couple easy shots the last two minutes of the game which should have been made and given Park City the win. Benson's free throws really made no difference, as the . team's overall bad shooting made everyone the collective goat of the game. Willard said only Jeff Keye showed show-ed any consistency throughout the Grantsville game, and throughout the entire season to date. "He's been a factor in every game," Willard said. Keye tried to singlehandedly get Park City through Friday's contest. He scored 24 points, including four three-pointers, one with time running runn-ing out which got Park City close. On the season Keye is shooting almost 60 percent from the field, 83 percent from the free throw line. The first quarter of Friday's game SEE GRANTS page B2 |