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Show AMERICAN FORK CITIZEN Thursday, February 14, 2008 COMMUNITY SPORTS, PEOPLE AND. OUTDOOR FUN Cavemen grapplers finish third at Region 4 tournament Page 6 AF qualifies 10 for state Neil K. Warner and Beky Beaton NORTH COUNTY The American Fork wrestling team finished third Friday night in their home gym and qualified 10 wrestlers for the state tournament this week at UVSC. It will be the largest contingent to represent the Cavemen at the state meet in at least a decade. Spanish Fork racked up 258.5 points to win the Region 4 title. Lehi placed second with 197.5 points, American Fork was third with 177.0 points, and Lone Peak came in fourth (131 points), followed by Pleasant Grove (123) and Timpanoguj (37). Two Cavemen won individual region re-gion titles: Justin Ballantyne (28-11 overall) at 103 and Michael Hortman (35-3) at 145. Finishing second were Jason Ballantyne Ballan-tyne (26-14) at 103, Scott Newman (26-12) (26-12) at 119, Kyle Sumsion (26-10) at 189 See WRESTLE, Page 7 ASHLEY FRANSCELLNorth County American Fork's Matt Newman, above, tries to flip Lone Peak's Rory Murano on his back for a pin in the 125-pound weight class during the Region 4 wrestling tournament Friday at American Fork High School. ' - , '-' ' 1 'ir.iiwiui.!),''" " MM HUM ati , p a Smith leads several AF swimmers who earn best individual times at state meet Jared Lloyd and Dean Von Memmott NORTH COUNTY It was right there, a state record ripe for the picking. American Fork senior Can- dice Smith came into the second day of the 5A state meet Saturday Satur-day at BYU needing to cut just .07 seconds off of her fastest fast-est time in the 100-yard backstroke to set a new state record. Since swimmers generally do better at state, everyone at the pool believed it was pos sible. Smith fired off the block and powered her way through the water, building build-ing a large lead on the field. Her only competition as she sped toward the wall was the dock. When she touched to end the race, the scoreboard read 56.67 seconds, meaning she had missed the record by just .01. "It felt good, but I struggled on the walls a little bit," she said. "Being that close means anything could've made the difference, like being imperfect imper-fect under water. I just need to work on the little technical things." The missed record did little to dampen her spirits, and for good reason. The backstroke title was her second individual victory of the day, as she had Candice Smith took first in the 10(-yard backstroke with a time of 56.67 seconds I . 1 i . L .,j ; I m y jf v V r; ; l ; ' i I - 1 ! I rr - r r 1 ) I : , 1 y 4 14 I J.UX .4. t ti ( J t - '"4 MARIO RUIZNorth County American Fork's McKay King looks at the results after finishing third with a time of 4H.M in the boys 100-yard freestyle at the 5A stale swimming championships on Saturday at BYU's Richards Building. earlier finished first in the 100 freestyle in a personal-record 52.97 seconds. She was also named the 2008 Girls Swimmer Swim-mer of the Year. After the freestyle race, Smith said, "It was fun racing against friends." American Fork coach Kathy King added, "We're hoping for a super-fast swim from her in the backstroke. back-stroke. She never disappoints." "I'm going to remember the state titles," Smith explained. "There's no reason to dwell on missing the state record. I'm not able to help it if I missed by .01." "Falling a hundredth of a second short of tying the record re-cord was like an eternity for Candice," King said. "Though she didn't set a new state record, re-cord, her time still qualifies her for nationals and for a chance to be swimmer of the meet. "In our eyes, she is already the swimmer of the meet. She's also going to be walking out with two state championships. champion-ships. That's a fantastic way for her to end her high school career." "It's awesome to get the wins," Smith said. I won last year my first win ever and I was shocked, but this year I swam a different event, so it was a little different. I swam my best time, so I'm really re-ally happy. I try to be positive and to have fun at these meets because high school swimming swim-ming is fun." Smith said she will have one more opportunity to earn that state record next week at senior state and plans to give it her all. Smith's efforts at the state meet helped American Fork to finish sixth in the girls division. divi-sion. The Cavemen tied with Lone Peak for eighth place in the boys division. The girls got off to a solid start with a fifth place in the 200 medley relay with Smith, Abby Morrison, Chanel Noot and Jamie Nebeker. Nebeker dropped more than four seconds off her seed time to finish second in the 200 IM. Noot was 10th and Maddie Dailey 16th. Dailey was also 15th in the 500 free, and Nebeker later came in fifth in the 100 breaststroke. In the 200 free relay, the girls were 10th with Tabbi Sumsion, Brinley Caldwell, Nicole Casey and Alliesha O'Neal. They earned sixth in the 400 free relay with Nebeker, Nebek-er, Morrison, Noot and Smith. The top performer on the boys side was McKay King. He took third in the 200 free after beating his seed time by more than three seconds and and also came in third in the 100-yard freestyle race. See SWIMMING, Page 7 Gentry Haws American Fork High School Age: 18 Year: Senior Sports: Basketball, baseball Positions: Guard, outfielder Birthplace: American Fork Favorite team: Phoenix Suns Favorite movie: Hoosiers Favorite book: Dangerous Games Favorite food: Philly steak sandwiches sand-wiches Favorite restaurant: Wingers Favorite class: Math Grade Point Average: 3.80 Most memorable career moment: Being on the American Fork Junior High ninth-grade team that won the league championship. Future plans: To work, then go on an LDS mission. American Fork head boys basketball coach Doug Meacham said: "He's a motor who doesn't quit. He picks up quickly what we teach him. He makes guys practice hard. He always dives for loose balls." AF SPORTS Date setfor little league cheer tryouts Little League cheer tryouts for girls in grades 5 through 9 are scheduled for Feb. 23 at American Fork High School. Clinics will be offered at the school on Feb. 16 and 22 in preparation prepa-ration for the tryouts. For more information, session times and forms, go to www. cavemencheer.com or call Jackie Sorenson at 367-8959. American Fork taking applications applica-tions for open boys tennis coach position: The American Fork High School administration is seeking immediate applicants for boys tennis coach. Interested and qualified individuals indi-viduals are encouraged to contact Chad Seely, athletic director, or Chad Wilson, athletic administrator, administra-tor, at the school as soon as possible. pos-sible. Call 756-8547. AF girls hoops wrap up region title on senior night Beky Beaton NORTH COUNTY Ttailing for most of three quarters, the American Fork girls basketball team roared back in the final period to beat hard-working Pleasant Grove 50-42, securing the Region 4 title and a top seed into the 5A state tournament. It was senior night for the Cavemen, and they honored Marlisa Hardman, Lindie Spencer Spen-cer and April Hansen not only with gifts, but with starts in this contest, the final of the regular season. Spencer got the crowd going by hitting a trey to open scoring, scor-ing, but Viking Sarah Clement converted on a couple of free throws on the other end to quickly close the gap. Pleasant Grove moved ahead a little later in the quarter when Krystal Carter hit a long jumper. Clement stole the ball on American Fork's next possession, and Whitney Giles cashed in on the turnover with one of her trademark 3-point-ers to make it 7-3. The Viking lead got as wide as eight in the early second period when Giles scored in the paint, but Caveman Cydne Ma-V Ma-V son responded wit h a trey off 1 ' rewind the feed from Haley Holmstead to immediately reduce the deficit, defi-cit, and it never got that wide again. Nevertheless, Pleasant Grove managed to stay out in front until late in the third quarter. With less than three minutes remaining in that period, American Fork's Makenzie Moea'i kicked the ball out to Mason for another big three, which drew her team within one. The duo combined again on the play of the game. I lolm-stead lolm-stead took an in-bounds pass on her own end and gave it up to Mason, who spiked a no-look no-look bounce pass to Moea'i at the top of the key. She drove in and finished the play with an inside bucket and about 10 seconds left before the start of the final stanza, giving the Cavemen their first lead since the opening basket. They got an immediate cushion cush-ion when Mason hit her third trey of the contest and never trailed the rest of the way, though the Vikings were in the game until the final minute. Holmstead led the effort for the home team with 16 points, Mason added 13 and Amy Krommenhoek had eight, including in-cluding a pair of big treys. "That felt good," said American Ameri-can Fork coach Corey Clayton. "We played with a little panic on both ends in the first half, but the girls came together at the end of the game to get the job done. "In the second half, we were more patient, and it was nice to see Cyd make some shots," the coach continued. "Our guards applied good pressure. Their bigs hurt us some, but we usually usu-ally do a good job on kids who are bigger, since we have to deal with that every game." The Cavemen wrap up the regular season with an 18-2 record, 8-2 in region. They will begin the 5A state tournament Tuesday at 11:10 a.m. at Salt Lake Community College. "I really think our region could do some damage in the playoffs," Clayton said. "From one to four, we're really tough. I hope that has prepared us for what we'll see at the state tournament." tour-nament." I Feb. 6 - American Fork 61, Lehi 52: At Lehi, visiting American Amer-ican Fork used a strong second . i quarter to pick up the region road victory. After Lehi took a 17-13 lead after the first period, the Cavemen Cave-men responded by oust coring the Pioneers 19-6 in the second to take a nine-point halftime lead. American Fork then held off Lehi in the second half. Coach Corey Clayton was not very pleased with his team's effort. He said, "We didn't play g(K)d tonight. They Lehi set some good screens that hurt us. "Because they were bringing bring-ing a winless region record into this game, we didn't get excited for the game. Our offense was good, but our defense de-fense wasn't. We knew what they were going to do, but we didn't follow through with our defense," he added. After the opening tipoff, American Fork's Amy Krommenhoek Krom-menhoek opened the night's scoring, and a Haley Holmstead layup improved the lead ut 4-0. After Briar Sands had put a Pioneer shot back in, teammate team-mate Stephanie Rogers tied the game at four. Caveman Nikki Ybarra broke the 4-4 draw, and a Cydne Mason Ma-son shot improved American Fork's lead at 7-4, Lehi's Jackie Cattani's first trey tied the game at seven, and she later nailed two straight 17-foot shots that gave Lehi a 17-13 margin at the end of the first quarter. The Cavemen opened the second quarter by going on a 13-0 scoring run started by Holmstead and Krommenhoek. A KJ Secretan bucket opened Lehi scoring in the second quarter. However, American Fork held Lehi to six points in the quarter. Two Holmstead free throws left her team with a 32-23 advantage at the break. At the start of the second half, Kaycee Mansfield stole the ball and passed to it I lolmstead for a layup. Krommenhoek chipped in a 17-foot bucket to extend the American Fork lead to 13. A bit later, Lehi orchestrated an 8-0 scoring run that pushed the Pioneers within 44-39 by the end of the quarter. In the final period, shots from Holmstead, Krommenhoek, Krommen-hoek, Mason and Mansfield enabled en-abled American Fork to maintain main-tain a narrow lead. Lehi closed within 53-48 in the last two minutes, but foul shots from Ybarra, Mason and Krommon-hoek Krommon-hoek clinched the game for American Fork. Holmstead led American ( Fork with 20 points while Krommenhoek had 16 and Mansfield added another 12. I Feb. 8 - Timpanogos 56, American Fork 53: The Cavemen Cave-men fell just short in a thriller in Orem. After the Cavemen charged back from an eight-point deficit defi-cit to tie the game at 53-53 on Haley Holmstead's three-point play with 24.6 seconds remaining, remain-ing, the T'Wolves' Morgan Freestone rattled in a 3-pointer with just under 10 seconds left to put her team up by three. American Fork had enough time for a final shot, but Amy Weitzeil came up with a block to secure the Region 4 win for Timpanogos. The thrilling ending was fitting fit-ting considering how competitive competi-tive the game was throughout. The T'Wolves opened up a brief six-point lead early in the first quarter, but the Cavemen went on a 194 run to take a 23-14 23-14 lead in the second. Timpanogos responded quickly and tied the game at 29-29 at halftime. The game remained re-mained close in the third quarter quar-ter and the teams went into the final period tied at 37 apiece. The T'Wolves went on a run See REWIND, Page 7 |