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Show ' ' " ' i ' "" ' The Uintah Ute boy hoopsters, Union's cagers and the Uintah girl hoopsters treated the Utah fans to action packed basketball at state tournaments in Kaysville, Provo and Salt Lake City. American Fork was figured as one of the favorites for the 3-A state title, but the Utes decided the road to first place traveled through American Fork. The Utes were behind, 21 to 13, going into the second quarter, but they staged a 28-point uprising that gave the Vernal team a one-point lead of 41 to 40 at the end of the first half. It appeared that Uintah had a shot at upsetting one of the top ranked teams in the first round. The Utes put in a field goal for a three-point lead early in the second half and had a one-point lead of 49-48 midway in the third quarter. American Fork overcame the Uintah lead and won the game, 82 to 69. However, the game was a lot closer than the final score indicated. The Utes made the Cavemen work for every point. Uintah, a fourth place team from Region Seven, made American Fork, the first place team from Region Six, fight for a victory in the first round. The Uintah Utes competed in only two games, but several hoopsters turned in outstanding performances. Derrin Gardiner was the top scorer for Uintah with 37 points in two games. He scored 17 points in the game with American Fork and put in 20 points in the battle with Davis High School. Uintah had four cagers, Gardiner, 17; Burke Buckalew, 16; Clark McClellan, 12 and Joe Gardiner 12, in double figures in the game against American Fork. Uintah had three cagers, Derrin Gardiner, 20; Burke Buckalew, 14 and Brent Labrum, 11, in double figures in the game against Davis. Buckalew scored 30 points in two games. Uintah's girl cagers came pretty close to pulling off one of the shockers in the tournament. Provo nipped Uintah in the first round, 48 to 46, but the Bulldogs had to go into a stall in order to win the game. Provo had an eight-point lead going into the third quarter. Uintah exploded for 17 points, but the Bulldogs held on to win by two points. The Utes toppled Carbon High School, 45 to 33, but were knocked out of the tournament due to a 59 to 48 loss to Davis. The Utes had leads in the first and second quarter and had chances to take the lead in the third and fourth quarter, but they couldn't get their shots to fall. The performance of Union High School had to be one of the highlights of the 2-A State Tournament. The Cougars were massacred in the first round by Richfield. 73 to 47. The Cats were crushed by the first place team from Region Eight. Richfield, Rich-field, in the first round and the Cougars had to battle another first place team, Wasatch, in the consolation bracket. Union regrouped and went from a dismal defensive team in the Richfield game to an outstanding defensive crew as they held Wasatch to 40 points. The Wasps had been averaging about 60 points in region contests. The show wasn't over for the Union Cougars as they defeated Morgan, 50 to 40, for consolation championship, honors. The Cougars won the first battle with Morgan, 56-54 and Morgan won the second game in February, 66 to 57. Morgan had an 18 to 11 lead early in the second quarter, but two bombs by Tracy Dye and field goals by Steve Ferguson, Clay Harrison and Kary Eldredge kept the Cats in the ball game in the first half. Morgan had a 23-21 lead after two quarters. Stephen Robb scored only six points in the game against Morgan, and scored all of his counters in the third quarter. Robb put in three straight field goals to tie the game up at 25, 27 and 29 to match field goals by Morgan's Scott Stcnberg, Roger Randall and Ken Hunt Clay Harrison couldn't hit a thing in the first half, but the second half was a completely different story. Harrison was blanked in the first quarter, scored only one field goal in the second quarter, but burned the basket for lfi points in the second half. He scored six points in the third quarter and popped in ten counters in the fourth quarter. He was six for seven from the foul line in the second half. The game was tied at 29-29 with three minutes left in the third quarter and then Clay Harrison went on a scoring rampage that produced five field goals in a row for a 39-34 Union lead in the fourth quarter. A two-pointer by Harrison gave Union its first lead in the second half at 31-29, with 2:47 left in the third quarter. Morgan's Daren Peterson tied the game at 31-31, but Harrison put in another field goal for n 33 to 31 Union lead. Three more field goals by Harrison increased Union's lead to live points in the fourth quarter and the Cougars went on to win the game by the score of 50 to 40. Richfield won the 2-A stale title, but the Union Cougars stole the show from the Wildcats as they knocked off Wasatch and Morgan, even though they had one of the poorest records of any team in the tournament. Union finished with 8 wins and 13 losses. |