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Show B6 Wednesday, February 2, 2005 Uintah lose atch 4m Was Vernal Junior High wrestlers stand Vernal Jr. High wrestlers on top during weekend tourney Wrestlers from Vernal Jr. High School came out on top during the Junior High State Tournament held last weekend at Western Park. With 3,000 people in attendance, atten-dance, Vernal's young wrestlers wres-tlers took advantage of an unbelievably unbe-lievably great opportunity by winning the 3A state championship. champi-onship. Coach Jason Workman said this was the school's first win in a long time, although the 7 t 4v 1 Tcoi 1 - I MdtS Amber Bunderson drives the ball to the basket, while Amy Parkinson looks Utes lose close game The Uintah girls basketball team dropped a 41-43 decision at Judge Memorial on Thursday night. The Utes, who have started each of the last five games with big leads, couldn't find the basket bas-ket against the stingy Bulldog defense the first half. Judge jumped out to a 6-0 lead before Uintah scored the next 8 points leaving the score 8-6 after the first quarter. The lone basket for the Utes the second quarter was a 3-point basket by Maggie Bartel. Sara Cushing added a free-throw but Judge led 16-12 at half. Uintah shot 2 for 9 from the line the first half and Lindsey and Lacey Christensen were scoreless. Judge was playing play-ing solid defense but so were the Utes. Uintah came out the second half and outscored Judge 15-13 in the third to find themselves down by two points, 27-29 to start the fourth. "I really felt like we were going to win the game. It is very difficult to beat region rivals twice in a row and Judge is a very difficult place to play," stated Coach Shannon Johnson. Their kids play real hard at home and their fans are into the game." With 2 minutes to go in the game, Judge's Dani Griffin made a 3-point shot to give the Bulldogs a 7 point lead. The A l ill 1 I 1 & on the championship platform. wrestlers have come in second several times. Workman put together 11 finalists and came out with six champions with a total score of 209. Winners were Clay Reynolds, 65 pounds; Colby Christensen, 70 pounds; Dakotah Holmes, 76 pounds; Candace Workman, 96 pounds; Creedon Merkley, 108 pounds; and Nick Merrick, 210 pounds. Other wrestlers on the yr'H"1 ' H3 Utes started applying a little more pressure and the coach told the kids to try and steal the ball if they could and if not, to foul. The result was 16 free-throws free-throws for Judge of which they only connected on 6. At the same time Lindsey and Lacey Christensen continued to make baskets for the Utes and with 10 seconds to go Uintah found themselves with the ball and only down 2 points. After a missed shot by the Utes, the ball was loose and went out of bounds, to what appeared by Uintah fans and coaches, last touched by a Judge player. When the officials offi-cials finally made a call it was Lacey Christensen's fifth foul of the game. Coach Johnson questioned ques-tioned the call and was given an unforeseen technical foul. He was then given another technical techni-cal for objecting the first one and dismissed from the game. Stated Johnson, "I deserved the second technical foul but I didn't think I deserved the first one." "I felt like Judge deserved to win the game," said the coach. "They defended well and made shots when they needed to. Obviously, when you shoot 6 for 15 from the line, like we did in a close game, it is difficult to win. I was still really proud of the girls. They never gave up and did the right things down winning team were Bennett Oscarson, Josh Cowley, Lucas Price, Malen Critton, Stratton Schulz, Ryan Griffis, Taylor Merkley, Joe Frost, Jake Bailey, Damon Mele, Jesse McKee, Lane Woody, Josh Rhoades, Justin Spence, Matt Sunkees, Justin Curtice, Cade Chew, Chase Harvey, Jake Mair and Jake Price. Coach Workman said he is very proud of everyone every-one on the team. -.i J"" :V-W for the pass against Judge. to Judge the stretch to give themselves a chance to win." "Coaches from Salt Lake Community College were in attendance at the game and afterwards they told me how impressed they were with our whole team's 'will to win.'" Lindsey and Lacey Christensen were as hot the second half as they were cold the first. They scored 27 of the team's 29 points in the second half, including all 14 of the Ute's points in the fourth quarter. quar-ter. Lindsey finished the game with 14 points, including two 3-pointers, shot 4 for 4 from the line and handed out 4 assists. Lacey had 13 points and one 3-pointer. 3-pointer. Maggie Bartel finished the game with 9 points and a couple 3 pointers. She also had 5 rebounds and 4 steals. She made a couple of key baskets to keep the Utes in the game the first half. Sara Cushing had 3 points and 4 rebounds. Amber Bunderson rounded out the Ute scoring with 2 points. Krissy Hacking added 5 rebounds. The Lady Utes have a favorable favor-able schedule remaining for the rest of region play. They will host Granite on Tuesday and Park City on Friday. Their remaining away game will be at Union on Feb. 8, and they finish the season hosting the first place Wasps on Feb. 11. All game times are at 5:15. The tournament was made of 24 teams who wrestled all day. Delta took second place. Racquetball tournament Saturday for adults Uintah Recreation District will hold its first adult racquet-ball racquet-ball tournament Saturday, Feb. 5 at 10 a.m. The tournament will be a round robin followed by a double elimination tournament. tourna-ment. Prizes will be awarded to Slow start The Uintah Utes boys basketball bas-ketball team has been plagued by slow starts during region play and Friday night at Judge Memorial was no exception. The Utes were outscored 24-8 in the first quarter as Judge handed hand-ed the utes a 65-39 defeat last Friday night. Coach Mansfield commented, "We tried to slow down the inside play of Daniel Deane who is their leading scorer, and it led to some open shots for some of their other players and they took advantage." advan-tage." Marcus Walisky and Michael McGill had big first quarters for the Bulldogs to spark the huge first quarter run. The Bulldogs grabbed 6 offensive rebounds in the first quarter which turned into 8 points for Judge in the first quarter alone. "It is tough to hold a team under 50 points when we give up this many offensive rebounds. They just had too many more opportunities to Uintah's wrestling team came up short against the Wasatch Wasps last week. The undefeated Utes put five of their wrestlers in first, but Wasatch put 9 of their wrestlers wres-tlers in first. "They just had more studs than we did," said Coach Greg Stensgard. "Going into the dual, I thought we would break even, but things didn't go our way." Taking first for Uintah was Ryan Young at 103, who has won or placed in every tournament tourna-ment this year. Levi Mele took first at 112, defeating a wrestler wres-tler he faced for the state title last year. Mele dominated the match 8-1. At 132 pounds Czyz Woody took first with a pin. Woody got down in the first period, but refused to give up and beat his opponent. At 171 Phillip Keddy faced a good wrestler, but he domi- nated the match as he has done all season. Up 5-1 until the last period when his opponent got a last minute take-down. Keddy won that match 5-3. At 189 Jared McCurdy won by a pin against a wrestler who the 1st and 2nd place winners. Participants must be 16 years of age or older. The registration registra-tion fee is only $5 per participant. partici-pant. The registration deadline is Thursday, Feb. 3. The Uintah Recreation District has racquets rac-quets available if needed. To hampers score than we had," Mansfield said. Defensively, the Utes had a better second quarter and held Judge to 11 points as they rebounded better and limited the open shots that Judge had gotten in the first quarter. "I thought we played hard and competed after the first quarter," quar-ter," said Mansfield, as they held Daniel Deane, who averages aver-ages nearly 20 points a game, to 14 points. "I saw a lot of good things against a good team, but we need to be more consistent and play hard the whole game," added Mansfield. The Utes came out of the locker room at halftime determined deter-mined to play the kind of basketball bas-ketball they are capable of and it showed as they played the Bulldogs to a 14-14 tie in the third quarter. The Utes were led offensively by Mason Smuin and Alex Spendlove as they finished the game with 16 and 11 points respectively. The J) I? attempted to wrestle McCurdy-style McCurdy-style and paid for it Others showing strength at the tournament were Jared Ruppe at 160. Ruppe didn't get points for some near falls which could have won the match for him. At 215 Nathan Curtis lost in the third period, but for most of the match it was 0-1. At 152 Chance Caldwell, had a good opportunity against his opponent, but an early take down put him down seven points, from which he couldn't recover. Dez Pitt, at 119, lost to a strong Wasatch wrestler. "I am confident we will do a lot better next week," Stensgard said. Next Saturday will be the 3A Region tournament at Union High School. Wrestling will begin at 11 a.m. "I hope to place as many of our wrestlers as possible in the state tournament," Stensgard said. Those placing in the top four will wrestle in the State Tournament at Utah Valley Community College the next week. register come by the Uintah Recreation District office located locat-ed in the back of the Chamber of Commerce Building at 134 West Main, Suite 101 or call 781-0982 781-0982 for more information. the Utes Utes shot the ball better than they had in previous games as Spendlove connected on 3 three-pointers, three-pointers, Smuin added two, and Skyler Seitz added one, for a total of six three-point baskets. bas-kets. Skyler Seitz finished with 5 points, Jake Butler scored 3 points and Kevin Labrum and Griffin Brady each added 2. The Utes still have an opportunity oppor-tunity to make the playoffs as they have 4 region games remaining. The Utes host Granite on Tuesday, Feb. 1st and Park City on Friday, Feb. 4. These are two must win games for the Utes if they are going to make the playoffs as they are facing the teams they are competing with for the 4th and final playoff spot from region 10. The Utes will also travel to Union on Tuesday Feb. 8 for a rematch of the Uintah Basin battle. They will complete their region 10 schedule by hosting the defending State Champion Wasatch Wasps on Feb. 11. Uintah's offense attempte qo qet the ball underneath aqainst Judge. r h h |