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Show Moab Cagers Win Two Dig Games, Begin Surge for Le ague Led by Danny Price It looks as though the Moab Red Devils have given notice that they intend to make a bid for the southern division title during the last four weeks of this year's prep basketball bas-ketball campaign. Just a week ago the Red Devils were 0-2 in league play and were sitting in the division cellar. Now they're 2-2, after knocking off preseason pre-season favorite East Carbon last Wednesday and toying with Notre Dame last Friday. But the Red Devil cagers will probably have to win the remainder of their league games to get a chance at the title and even then things could possibly end up in a three way tie. Three Way Tie That means every game will be a must game for Moab. Mo-ab. The Red Devils, need to win their final six games and winning six straight in any league is a chore. Moab still has two games with Green River, currently in fifth place in the league, one game left with Notre Dame, the Celler-dweller, and then things get a little rougher. rough-er. The Red Devils still have one game with San Juan, East Carbon and league-leading Monticello. Hosts San Juan Moab host San Juan Friday night at 8:00 p.m. in the GCHS gymnasium, but Moab must go on the road to battle East Carbon and Monticello. San Juan, who upended Moab Mo-ab in the league opener 62-48 in Blanding, are currently Southern Division Standings School Won Lost Jnticello 5 0 East Carbon 3 7 Moab 2 2 San Juan 2 2 Green River 1 2 Notre Dame 0 5 tied with the Red Devils for third place in the division, behind be-hind Monticello (5-0) and East Carbon (3-2). But the Red Devils have improved rapidly since the league opener and with the home court advantage the game will be up for grabs. San Juan, in four league games, is averaging 76. 0 points a game to give them an edge over the Red Devils, who will take a 61.0 average into the tilt. Moab has been a little more generous when it comes to opponent scoring. Moab has allowed foes an average av-erage of 62.5 points per tilt, while the Blanding five held their opponents to a 52.7 average. aver-age. GCHS cage coach, Ward Curtis will field his usual starting lineup, which will see Jim Cowan and Jerry Stewart Stew-art or Kenny Yama at the guards, Ben Davidson and John Fossey at the forwards and Roy Brown at center. Davidson is tied for fifth place among Region Six scoring scor-ing leaders. The 6-1 forward for-ward has tallied 70 points in the four league tilts for a 17.5 average. Davidson also leads the team in overall twelve game statistics with a 14.6 mark. Yama, who has been the spark plug in Moab's last two victories, has moved up to second place in scoring and follows Davidson with 10.8 average in four league tilts. Overall Yama is averaging 6.2 points a game and is in fifth place in season statistics Jim Cowan will take a 7.8 league average into tomorrow night's contest, with Jerry Stewart close behind at 7.5, followed by Fossey & Brown both with 6.0 league averages. So Moab faces San Juan Friday. If they win then they'll go on to their next MUST game if they lose then their hopes for the division title will melt away like the Moab Snow. Win League Game Last Wednesday Moab surprised sur-prised everyone by grabbing their first league win as they trimmed powerful East Carbon Car-bon 72-69 in the final seconds behind the foul shooting of Ben Davidson and some cosily cosi-ly fouls by the visiting Vikings. Vik-ings. The Vikings, behind the shooting of Jerry Howell and Jim Stevenson, jumped off to a 14-6 first quarter lead, but a full court press put on by the Red Devils payed off midway mid-way through the second period per-iod as the Vik:;r" began throwing the ball away r. ' I all of a sudden Moab took the lead and went to the dressing rom with a 28 23 halftime advantage. It was a big second quarter for Moab as they outscored the Vikings 22-9 as guard Jim Cowan lead the surge offensively offen-sively in the first half with eight points, while Viking Jerry Howell pumped in the same for the visitors. Howell is the Region Six scoring leader with a hefty 27.5 average. aver-age. Moab widened their lead in the ihird period to 14 points but East Carbon battled back to within two points (42-40) at the end of the third quarter. quar-ter. And again Moab widened widen-ed the margin and again East Carbon battled back and with five minutes remaining the Vikings were within six at 57-51. Final Minutes East Carbon tied the score at 61-61 with three and one-half minutes remaining and then things really got hectic. Howell picked up his fifth foul with two minutes remaining and left the game with Moab leading 65-63. Howell headed for the bench with 27 points for the night. The Red Devils took advantage ad-vantage of the absence of Howell and some last-minutf fouls by the Vikings to widen their slim margin. With less than 45 seconds remaining Davidson sank three straight foul shots to make it 70-67, Jim Cowan was fouled and he sank a charity toss to make it 71-67 and then Brent Jacobs was fouled and he sank a foul shot to make it 72-67 as East Carbon tried , frantically to get the ball only on-ly to grab an arm and be called for a foul. Viking Jim Gunderson hit a long jump shot with 10 seconds sec-onds remaining to make it 72-69, but time ran out on the visiting East Carbon quintet. Davidson finished the night with 22 points, while Jim Cow and added 17 and Kenny Yama Ya-ma sank 13. Stewart added 7, Fossey 5, and Brown and Jac obs each tallied four apiece. Viking Jim Stevenson followed fol-lowed Howell with 15, while Fret Harvey added 10 to lead East. Carbon. Junior Varsity Local fans really got their moneys worth last Wednesday Wednes-day as they eyed the preliminary prelim-inary junior varsity game which was even closer than the varsity game as East Carbon edged Moab's JV quin tet, 64-63. The Viking JV's lead at the end of the first period 10-8, but Moab's JV's came back to hold a 26-22 halftime lead and the second half was even more frantic. East Carbon fought back and were within two at the end of the third period as the fourth quarter began. Closing Minutes With three minutes remain ing the score was tied 57-57, with two minutes left the score was 61-61 and then Viking Vik-ing guard Pete Martinez sank three free throws in the last 35 seconds to make it 64-61. Forward Sam Scarf sank a field goal with five seconds remaining to make it 64-63 as time ran out on the Red Devil Dev-il junior varsity. Scarf led Moab with 17 points, while Greg Norton added 15 and John Cowan picked up 12. Martinez, the fellow who picked up the last minute charity tosses finished finish-ed the night with 32 points for East Carbon. Second Varsity Win Moab's varsity won their second straight conference game last Friday with a 70 59 thumping of Notre Dame at Price. Ben Davidson and Kenny Yama led the onslaught as Davidson tallied 24 points, while Yama hit his season high of 20. Notre Dame held a early lead and were leading 29-28 with one and a half minutes left in the first half when Mo-cb Mo-cb exploded for five straight buckets and led at halftime 38-29. And from then on it was all Moab Red Devils led by as much as 20 points in the third and fourth periods as Coacti Curtis went to the- benchv.n the final period, giving his leserves ple. ty of acticn. Moab's fast break payed of? throughou.. the light aj the Red Devils passed and shot well. Yama scored all of his points in the first three periods per-iods and sat out the final quarter entirely as the Red Devil guard was. found oj under the basket all . niynf. as Moab worked, the fas( break to perfection. |
