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Show 18 Vernal Expre Wednesday, August 26, 1992 0 tes (face nogs By Eric F. Pye Sports Editor The Uintah football team held their traditional RedWhite scrimmage scrim-mage last Saturday in preparation for this Friday's season opener against Union. As is most often the case this early in the season, several question marks remain as far as positions and personnel are concerned. After Saturday's scrimmage, most of those questions remained unanswered. unan-swered. The reason? Depth. "I can't remember the last time we were this deep," Head Coach Curg Belcher said. "We have good athletes ath-letes backing up almost every position and several who can play two or three positions well. As far as how our level of talent will compare com-pare with the other teams remains to be seen." The talent level the coach is referring refer-ring to seems to be adequate enough to compete, with some long time Ute insiders saying the level is good enough to compete for the region title, ti-tle, although Coach Belcher would have none of that kind of talk this early in the season. "We could be very good, but we also have the potential po-tential to be average. We have the size, quickness and depth to sustain a consistent effort for the entire season. sea-son. We'll just have to see how certain cer-tain people react under game situations." situa-tions." The Utes will have a line that averages av-erages somewhere around 6-3, 230. The running backs go four deep with experience and the offense this season will most resemble the option; can you guess what the coaching staff would like to do? All the signs point toward a run oriented offense, but the beauty of this years attack will be it's diversity. diversi-ty. "About the time teams start look- ALL REGION kicker Howie Cleavinger shows Saturday. Cleavinger should give Utes added his form during RedWhite scrimmage firepower this season. FastPitch Critton Trucking wins girls league championships Critton Trucking, coached by Leon Mansfield and Frank Poglajen recently completed a clean sweep in girls fastpitch softball action by winning both the regular league and season-ending tournament championships. champi-onships. The girls received T-shirts and trophies for their accomplishment. accomplish-ment. ' The team went 6-1 in the five team league during the regular season sea-son and went through the double elimination tournament undefeated. Critton defeated Allred paving in the tournament championship game. Incoming league president Leon Mansfield is looking forward to the challenge of expanding the program and with it the opportunities for area girls. "I feel there is plenty of room for growth. Area girls deserve as many recreational opportunitcs as the community can supply." ;. "-Knar v k. m m k - at &, t joz, ama -r II t HEAD COACH Curg Belcher gives Ute player during scrimmage. ing for the sweeps and dives BOOM play action," exclaimed ex-claimed offensive coach John Green. "All the backs not only run well, they have good hands to boot. When the option attack is used correctly, cor-rectly, it's a nightmare for the defensive defen-sive ends and linebackers because it's (the option) so hard to read." The key figure in the option is the quarterback and the Utes go four deep there. "We have four young men who are extremely talented and versatile," Belcher explained. "Right now, our top two are probably proba-bly Tim Gibbons and Jamie Smuin, but Glendon Lamb and DJ. Lewis are talented and capable of running the offense." The quarterback situation is a good indication of the overall depth of this year's team. If Gibbons starts I ' CRITTON TRUCKING won the Vernal ASA girls 18-under fast-pitch fast-pitch tournament and league championship. Back Row: L-R Coach Frank Poglajen, Lori Mansfield, Jolyn Hacking, Naoni Barker, Michelle Baird, Rusty Cook, Maria Critton, Coach Leon Mansfield. Front : Misty Poglajen, J. Anderson, Jamie Sullivan, Jennifer Timothy, Misty Critton, April Dansie. Missing; Amanda Piesley and Amber Mansfield. FdsOay Photo by Eric Pye. a little fatherly care to injured at quarterback, Smuin will most likely start at safety and if Smuin starts at quarterback Gibbons will start at safety. One final aspect the coaching staff must be feeling good about is their special teams. With so many quick, talented athletes, Uintah's special team play should be excellent with a big ace-in-the-hole All Region kicker Howie Cleavinger. Coaches will tell you that if all things are equal in a game, the team with the stronger kicker will usually win. Cleavinger led Region VII (and state for most of the year) kickers kick-ers in average distance per kick and accuracy which means the Utes should have better field position for Continued on page 20 - 1 ' , ., Photo by Eric Pye. Lady Utes split first two games The Lady Ute soccer team, under the guidance of new Head and assistant assis-tant coaches Randy Shafer and Ray Forsgren played their first two games of the 1992 season only their second last week. Ben Lomand, which is basically a club team who has been together for a long time, delivered a wake-up call to the young Ute team with an 11-0 drubbing, but according to Shafer, the team gained and learned from the experience. "We are a very young team," Shafer explained. "We basically start one senior at the goalie position, posi-tion, so we have a lot to learn. But it also means there is very little pressure pres-sure on the kids, which is good. Every time we step on the field, you can see the girls improve and that's exactly what our emphasis is on this year." With that statement in mind, it would be understandable if the Lady Utes suffered the same fate in their Friday match-up against defending de-fending region champion Payson. First off, the game was played in almost gale force winds and rain the Payson goal post actually blew down during the contest and the officials stopped action for almost al-most 10 minutes in hopes of the wind subsiding. Then, the Lady Lions scored twice to take a 2-0 lead. The writing was on the wall. But just before halftime, Melissa Busch scored on a penalty kick to make it 2-1 at the half. Things were getting interesting. In the second half, Lady Ute Tracy Winter scored on a very unusual un-usual comer kick to tie the score at 2-2. After attempting to center the kick, the ball was deflected back out to Tracy, who kicked it again a floater . that . the wind grabbed and curled around the outstretched out-stretched hands of the Lion goalie for the score! Now the Lady Utes knew they had a shot and with time running down, Mindy Busch punched in the The Uintah golf team began their 1992 schedule with three tournaments tourna-ments in Colorado last week. The team, along with Coach Kent McCurdy competed at the Glenwood Springs course last Wednesday the 19th along with nine other teams from around Colorado. Picking up where they left off last year, the Vernal crew won their first meet with a team total of 231. In high school golf, each team can only count their top three scores in Colorado (top four in Utah). Those scores are added up for the team total to-tal with obviously the lowest team score winning. Levi Smuin led the way with a first place individual score of 69. The other two placers for Uintah were Brock Pope with an 80 and Luke Caldwell with an 82. Aspen finished second with a 232 and BasaltRoaring Fork finished third with a 234. "For our first meet, a 231 was an excellent score," McCurdy stated. HERE'S WHAT it looks like from i TEAMMATES AND Coach come to the assistance of Mellissa Busch who took a hard hit to the legs during game with Ben Lomand. Mellissa recovered and played second half. , "1 ' , ' - PAUL FRITZ receives plaque from Head boys soccer coach Ed Browning for his extensive contributions and work in establishing a soccer program in Vernal. winning goal to give the team a 3-2 all game. We felt all along we had a come-from-behind victory. shot." When asked if he was surprised The girls next game will be by the win, new assistant coach Ray Wednesday the 2nd at home against Forsgren didn't hesitate; "No, of American Fork who lost by two to course not! The kids played tough Payson. The team stayed in Colorado thanks to contributions from the Men's Golf Association and traveled trav-eled to Rifle, Colorado Thursday for the next tournament. In Rifle, Uintah competed with 14 other teams and turned in another strong performance by finishing second with a 237; just two strokes behind the winning team of Grand Junction with a 235. Scott Monson was low man for the Utes in Rifle carding a 76, just one stroke off the winning individual individu-al score of 75. Smuin finished second sec-ond on the Ute squad with a 78 while Pope took third with an 83. The third day of the Ute trip saw the young team competing in Craig, Colorado with 15 other teams. The Utes score reflected the tough course and their travel as the team finished fifth with a 253, eight strokes back of Aspen with a 245. Monson and Pope tied for top Ute honors with identical 83 's while the sixth tee at the Rifle golf course. Luke Caldwell and Trent Pope tied for the third and final counting score of 87. Lady Ute Jill Steenburg, who must compete with the guys in Utah because there is no girls golf, had an opportunity to play against the girls teams in Colorado and ended up tying for first place in individual with an outstanding 83, (which would also have tied her for first on the boys team). "I thought for all the traveling and this being the first tournaments for us as a team, the kids performed well," McCurdy stated. "We really showed how deep we are as six different dif-ferent players had good enough scores to count. We even had two j.v. players who had scores low enough if they had been playing va-sity to help the team." The Utes first region and home meet is this Thursday (27th) beginning begin-ning around 2 p.m. with a shotgun start. The public is invited to attend. i 1 ' ' |