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Show 18 Vernal Express Wednesday, October 20, 1999 ? DiraDrffldl Deer permits sold out dlDT A decision made five years ago by the Utah Wildlife Board came home to roost last week in the Uintah Basin. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) announced that northeastern region buck deer hunting permits were sold out on Oct. 15 for the upcoming upcom-ing 1999 season general hunt. The only region that Utah residents may still buy buck deer hunting permits' is the northern region. Permits in the other four regions of the state have now sold out. The Wildlife Board approved a statewide and regional cap on general gen-eral buck deer hunting licenses several sev-eral years ago. The effort was intptiHfrt to limit the total harvest of buck deer and improve buck:doe ratios in all of the state's deer herd management units. This is the first year that license sales have ended before the season opening in the northeastern region. In previous years, the southern and southeastern region permit sales generally sold out early. Utah's 1999 general buck deer hunt begins this Saturday, Oct. 23. Hunters who are interested in obtaining a permit for the northern region may do so from 265 license agents across the state or from 'DWR business offices in Ogden, Salt Lake City, Springville, Vernal, Price and Cedar City. The DWR is reminding hunters that when the projected permit sales closing date for the northern region is determined, it will not be announced this year. The Utah Wildlife Board decided not to announce closing dates for each of the regional permit sales. According to a news release by the DWR, the Board decision was aimed at preventing a last minute rush by sportsmen to buy licenses before the closure dates. Judi Tutorow, DWR licensing coordinator, coordina-tor, said that a last minute rush contributed con-tributed to most of the DWR regions overselling licenses last year. Nonresident permits for the north-em, north-em, central and northeastern regions are still available and may be purchased from license agents statewide. Ute soccer ends The postseason interregional soccer soc-cer games opened with a disappointing disap-pointing loss for the Lady Utes. They faced a well-honed Waterford team in Salt Lake City and came up on the short side of a 4 - 1 final score. The game was held in Salt Lake City on Oct. 12. Waterford held a 1 - 0 advantage at the end of the first half. They grasped the lead just over the fingertips fin-gertips of the Lady Ute goalkeeper. Seven minutes into the second half of play, the Lady Utes knotted the score at one each as Stephanie Mott hit the net with an assist from Heather Calder. The tie game continued con-tinued until late in the half when the speed of Waterford's offense took a toll. The Lady Utes fell behind in three Waterford fast break away runs and soon nursed a 4 - 1 deficit. While the score was heavy to Waterford's benefit, the Lady Utes doubled the number of goal shots. Waterford was credited with seven shots on the goal while the Lady Ute offense kept the pressure on with 14. "We were able to maintain Waterford's offense and defend well except for the three critical break away opportunities that they capitalized on," Lady Ute Coach Anita Calder said. Waterford is a private school with a strong soccer program this season. They move on to the next round of state tournament play sporting only one loss this season. According to Coach Calder, the Lady Utes had a good season and can be proud of their performance against Waterford. "We played very well," Calder said. "When the game was over, the Waterford coaches complimented See Soccer on page 19 v V A W f 1 L Ute's defense held the Wasps to only two touchdowns, but came up one point short in the fourth quarter. Wasps put sting A controversial call by game officials offi-cials and a gambled two-point conversion con-version play tipped the balance in the tight scoring Wasp and Ute meeting last Friday night. The Utes fell short in the contest and sent Wasatch home counting their blessings bless-ings with a 14 - 13 victory on the Uintah home field. Uintah dropped an opportunity to gain a home field advantage in postseason play and must now win this week's game against Union to keep their season alive in state playoff action. The first quarter ended in a dead heat with the scoreboard show ing 0 - 0. Working on the ground, both teams lunged and parried try ing to score and establish game momentum. momen-tum. While not creating a viable threat themselves, the- Wasps were effective in keeping the Ute offense at bay forcing Chris Busch to tw ice punt the ball from the 15 in the first five minutes of the game. Uintah got the first break in the game by getting possession at mid-field mid-field after a Wasp punt early in the second period. Wasatch held and the Ute offense stalled. Busch planted a punt deep to the Wasp 11-yard line. Todd Stewart gave Uintah fans further hope by dropping drop-ping Wasp running back Mitch Morgan for a loss. Wasatch faced a third and eight on their own 16. Unfortunately, things turned bad when Wasp running back Ryan Van Roosendaal, carried the ball to the 26 and a first down. This became the first of five first dow ns and a drive to the goal line midway through the second quarter. The Wrasps drew blood asain with a PAT kick and led 7 - 0. The Utes bounced back with a kickoff return to the 34. A good gain from a reverse was nullified by a penalty and the Utes faced a second and 23 on their 20. Kyler Lance regained six yards on a run. Uintah attempted to surprise the Wasps with a fake punt on the fourth down. The plan failed and Wasatch had the gift of a first down on the Ute 36. Wasatch picked away yardage until they were on the eight-yard line with a first down. A fumble recovery coupled with a penalty Little League BioBds football super bowl The first annual Basin wide little league Super Bowl was held Saturday, Oct. 15 at the Uintah High School football stadium. The 49ers in both the senior and junior divisions represented Vernal. The Duchesne Eagles and Altamont Longhoms faced the Vernal 49ers in the junior division and senior division respectively. The Eagles' took home the trophy in the junior division with a 14-12 victory and the 49ers kept the senior division trophy at home with an 18 - 0 defeat of the Longhorns. The Uintah Basin was divided into a Western Basin League and a Vernal Basin League with a junior and senior division in each league. The Vernal League fielded four teams in each division and the y- -M IK s" vA call saved the Utes and gave them possession on their three. Uintah began salting a few passes into their game plan and a quick Alan Belcher to Kade Hancock reception moved the ball to the 17. They gained seven additional yards before the offense stalled. A short punt put the Wasps at the doorstep again w ith a first down on the Ute 38 but they were cut short and the half ended with the Utes trailing 7 -0. Uintah opened the third quarter kicking off. They held the Wasps to one series of dow ns and then went on the offensive with their passing game. Belcher connected with Busch for a first down on the Wasp 42. Belcher drew the Wasps offside to gain five yards on the penalty then kept the ball for a one-yard, first down earning run. He next went back to the air and connected again with Hancock for another first down, this time on the Wasp five. With six minutes showing on the clock. Belcher kept the ball, trotted around the left end and gave the Utes their first TD. Ryan Dart's PAT kick was good the score was even at seven each. After the Utes smothered the kickoff return on the 12-yard line, it looked as though the tide had turned in their favor. The Wasp put together a strong response based on strong running efforts from Van Roosendaal and Josh Probst. Van Roosendaal took the ball again and got to the Ute 19 but also got shook up on the play. With 55 seconds remaining in the period, the Wasps attempted a pass play that swirled in controversy. The receiver pulled in the pass and was immediately blasted and knocked out with a hard hit. The ball came loose and was recovered by the Utes on the seven-yard line. The official ruled that the ground and not the bone jarring hit kicked the ball loose after the play and awarded a reception and first down to the Wasps. While many on the Wasatch sidelines also questioned the call, they did not waste time pushing toward the- goal, sealing the PAT and boosting their lead to 14-7. Western Basin League had five teams each. Senior division players were from the seventh and eighth grade and the junior division comprised com-prised grades four, five and six. To reach the Super Bowl, Western League teams competed in a playoff tournament in each division. divi-sion. In the Vernal League, the teams with the best season record were elevated to the Bowl. The Eagles led the first half and enjoyed the advantage into the third quarter. Running back Levi Mele put the Vernal 49ers on the scoreboard score-board as the third period was drawing draw-ing to a close. When the fourth period began, the Eagles were up 14-6. Vernal QB Dillon Hanson scored the next TD with an end it- 4fc f vi At on UJtes The Utes mounted another offensive offen-sive push midway though the quarter quar-ter and capitalized on a big fourth and one-yard gamble at mid field. Belcher kept the ball, covered the yard and earned a first down on the Wasp 46. Belcher tossed a pass to Danny Morton to add another first dow n at the Wasp 37. Looking at a fourth and one on the 29, Belcher flicked a pass to Busch who took it the distance scoring the second Ute TD. With 3:08 showing on the quarter clock, the Utes lined up on the three showing the signs of a two-point conversion attempt. The Wasps called a timeout to . sort things out. After the timeout, the Utes again lined up without a kicker kick-er and threatened a two-point conversion con-version in an attempt to pull ahead by one. The gamble stopped short when Belcher ran around the right side of the line and was catrght just short of the goal line. Uintah was in the game and had tightened things up to a 14 -13 difference. Now with time running down to the final minutes of play, and desperate des-perate to add points, the Utes gambled gam-bled again with an on-side kick off attempt. The Wasps chased the ball down and came up with a first and 10 on their own 42. They used the running game to grind off valuable time from the clock. Van Roosendaal broke open and was galloping toward another Wasp goal when Danny Morton saved the day with an open field tackle stopping stop-ping Van Roosendaal on the 27. A quick follow-up pass from Wasp QB Brock Budd to Morgan provided provid-ed another first down on the 10 and less than a minute in the game. Wasatch let the clock run down winning 14 -13. The controversial official's call and Uintah's offensive gambling plays provide plenty of fodder for second-guessing the game outcome. out-come. However it is viewed, the result puts the Utes with a must win against Union to insure postseason play and a shot at the state tournament. tourna-ment. Wasatch will move on to face Lehi this week. The Utes will travel to Roosevelt to play in a universally uni-versally charged Basin rival match with Union. The game is slated to start at 7 p.m. run. Time ran out before the 49ers could score again and they lost by the difference of a TD conversion that the Eagles successfully put in. In the senior division game, the Vernal 49ers lead 6 - 0 at the half. The Longhoms held the 49ers scoreless through the third quarter. Three minutes into the fourth quarter, quar-ter, the 49crs scored their second TD and enjoyed a 12 - 0 lead. As the game time was clicking down to three minutes, 49er QB Joey Collins connected with a pass to Mike Swink and sealed the game with an 1 8 - 0 win. Vernal League vice president. Junior Collins said "The Basin little league program was a huge success this year. In the Vernal League, pirjj(Sft(a Increased numbers of buck deer will await hunters throughout most of Utah when the state's most popular popu-lar hunt its general season buck deer hunt begins Oct. 23. Based on surveys it conducted last winter, the Division of Wildlife Resources estimated Utah's mule deer population last winter at 321,500, up almost 36,000 over the estimated 285,650 deer in Utah during dur-ing the winter of 1997-98. The estimated 321,500 deer are more than 97,000 deer short of a statewide objective of 418,700 but are a vast improvement over the number of deer left in Utah after the winter of 1992-93. "There will be more deer awaiting hunter through most of the state," Division Big Game Coordinator Mike Welch said of this year's hunt. Welch said there was good production pro-duction and good overwinter survival sur-vival of deer this past year. Two areas w here deer continue to face challenges are in the Cache unit in northern Utah and many of the deer units in southeast Utah. "The Cache unit suffered a significant signif-icant loss of fawns two winters ago and there won't be many two-year-old bucks in this year's population," Welch said. In the southeastern Region many units continue to suffer suf-fer from poor habitat conditions brought about by long term drought in the region. An exception in the region is the Manti unit, which is holding good numbers of deer, Welch said. "All of the other areas in the state are doing really well," Welch said. The season runs Oct. 23 - 3 1 , w ith the exception of the Pine Valley, West area in the Southern Region, where the season runs five days, from Oct 23 - 27. About half of Washington and Iron counties are included in Pine Valley, W;est area. Projections for the buck numbers in northeast Utah are similar to last year, though hunters may have a slightly better chance of finding a few more bucks that are 3 points or better, said Steve Cranney, Northeastern Region wildlife manager. man-ager. "Our post season counts of mature bucks were up a little from the year before," Cranney said. "We're a little bit improved in that category." All of the region's general season units are either nearing, or have reached the objective of at least 15 buck per 100 does. The total number num-ber of deer on the South Slope unit, and the Currant Creek portion of the Wasatch Mountain unit, also is nearing the total number called for in management plans. f i " 1 A IT . V Jason Gross holds an unusual buck he took in a Colorado hunt. The buck has 12 points on one side and four on the other. approximately 65 young people participated in the junior league and 1 10 in the senior division. "We hope to build this into an annual event and make it a very positive little league program," Collins said. "We intend to build a bigger and better program each In 1998, 27 percent of those who hunted the Northeastern Region during the general season took a buck. Cranney said the hunters who'll find the most success bagging bag-ging a buck this season are those w ho have stuck w ith an area over a period of time. "Go back to where you go every year," Cranney advises. "The more you go back, the better hunter you'll be because you'll leam where the animals are and where they move. . "Evcrytime you go into a new areas, you sacrifice a lot of knowledge," knowl-edge," he said. Cranney advises hunters new to the region to pick an area and to start the learning process. He also prov ides some advice for hunting in the dry conditions that are currently prevalent in northeastern northeast-ern Utah. "The muzzleloader hunters have had beautiful but tough hunting conditions as the leaves are going from the aspens and are very dry and noisy," Cranney said. "Everything is against putting the sneak on game animals," Cranney said. "A little touch of snow not too much, just a touch would quiet things down and make for a much better rifle hunt. "If it snow doesn't happen then find a place, sit down, and let other hunters push the animals to you," Cranney advises. "This works much better during the rifle season as there are many more hunters in the field." One concern Cranney has is general gen-eral season hunters getting" lost; especially if they're hunting a new area that isn't familiar to them. "Even the old, veteran hunter can get turned around when storms move in that cut down visibility," he said. Cranney strongly encourages hunters to let someone at home or camp know where they're going, and w hen they plan to return. Cranney also reminds general season sea-son hunters that two areas they can't hunt this year are the Diamond Mountain and Book Cliffs units, both of which are open only to those who drew a limited entry permit for them. Hunters also are reminded that a substantial amount of land in the Uintah Basin is Ute Tribal land and is not open to public hunting. Hunters are encouraged to obtain maps, available from Division offices, to learn Ute tribal boundaries. bound-aries. For more information call the Northeastern Region Office at (435) 789-3103. V u V I V .:J:-v: A V year," he added. Collins said that the large trophies that the winning teams- received will be displayed in local businesses for the community to see. |