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Show 6A Emery County Progress Cat e Da'e Utah Tuesday February 27. 2001 Sports pairteims IbarMe Teams By RYAN Spos vv. i 1 records places them 5th offense into his own hands and scored from all over the court. He racked up Hi Miints in the quarter, but Hark Citv was able to hold the PEACOCK Reporter It m.iv in it ment 2-- have Imi n the tourna- men hud planned bulsomo-Itin- :r state chaiiipn uislups at n I - tier state in ( )gden i nded up anyvvav furthespar-ta- n lms basketball team Lincrx lost its quarterfinal came but botim-ito I, irk ( j t back to defeat hxie and .Indite t is a eomliined total of si points I. men placed lift h in the toiirnaiiient Imt earned wlmt is called the "consolation i hainpion-shi- p ' I record in the tourheir nament matched the record o! Imt h theseeiiiid place team and the third place team Linen was in a flood position going into the final quarter against Lark Citv The Spartans trailed hut had oiitscored the Miners li in the last ,S 32 of the third quarter. The Linen defense held Park Citv to only three field goals in the fourth quarter, hut the Miners shot an ustounding23 free throws in that quarter alone. Lcn more astounding is that they made 21 of those 2d free throw attempts. In fact. Park City shot 15 free throws in the name, which is the third-moeer in a state playoff If Miners had shot a reathe f!ame. sonable percentage (say, 75 per cent) the Spartans could haw won the frame. Hut Lark City made a g II of their 15 charity tosses, which is !)1.1 percent. evenOne Miner made Lark for win sealed the City tually Thi Sfiartans shot an incredible S2 but didn't get percent near enough attempts. One of the Spartans biff problems was having to play from behind the entire frame, thanks to a slow start, (her 2.23 of the first' quarter, while Linen was missing even shot they took, Lark City made to a field goal and two jump out to a 12-- 4 lead. The Miners led 14-- 8 at the end of the quarter. The Spartans and Miners played evenly in the second quarter, thanks to six points in a row In Jason Sjogren and five by Steven Lvvcll. The Spartans rot a bunch of points on offensive rebounds, but committed more than tw ice as main fouls as the Miners, who made free throws. The Spartans trailed at the half As they have all war, tin Spartans came out vv ith more intensity in the third quarter. Ewell took the 7:-;:- s. I 2-- 1 la-1- 9-- st mind-blowin- (23-of-2- () 5. SjMiians at Imv vv ith a shot here and there Lmery had nearly fought all at the wav back, but trailed the end of the third Lark City hit a quick that added a few more straws to the men earners hack, but the Spartans still had some lift1. Klint Anderson plawd a front quarter, lie made some steals, drove to the basket and got fouled, hit and tried to bring Linen back. Trailing In 111 points with two minutes left, I. men had to resort to fouhngtotry toeomeback As they had all fame. Lark City made free throw after free throw and uo Linen baskets could pull the Spartans back into tin fame. The final straw s were four Miner free throw sw ith one minute left that 09-5- 7 lead. The jfave Lark City a fame ended on a shot by Anderson at the buzcr, but Lmery lost 73-0Lvvell led the Spartans with 25 1 3. points. How ie Jeffs and Anderson each scored 12, and Sjoffren had eight. The usually freat-shootinff Spartans made only and it seemed as if all the five Lmery elements combined to the loss. Any number of unspectacular thiiiffs could have happened to give Lmery the vv in. but it wasnt a game for the unspectacular. The near-rccoin free throws, the unusu-ally-cord ld shooting, the inspired Lark City toam...they all combined loss for the cause a tw ilight-zon- e to Spartans. These things dont ex- cuse the Spartan loss, in fact, they are an indictment of it. The Spartans lost the game. It was n it caused by the referees, the alignment of the stars, where the Spartans stayed the night before, or any other excuse. The next test for Lmery was how the team could react to its dashed championship hopes. Could it come hack and play a better game the next night? Were the players hearts even into it? The Spartans answered all the questions with their thrilling come-from-behi- Dixie. Once again the Spartans were trailingin the fourth quarter. They trailed by as much as seven points, 5 with 1:4(5 left. But the Spartans played like champions and a couple of unlikely heroes won the game for Lmery. First, Jeffs hit a in towunroamemil!; tilhurotoeplft state free throw with 1:4(1 left and Lmery trailtxl by six. Then the unsung hen ics took ov er the game. Anderson hit a that cut the Dixie lead in half at 1 with 1.22 left. After an Lmery foul and two free throws by Dixie with 1. Hi left, Lmery trailed by five. Anderson drove down and hit anthis one from alxiut other 25 feet, and pulled Lmery to vv ithin two at After Anderson's heroics. Jesse Nielson didnt want to be left out. Nielson had only four points in Emery's loss to Lark City and had only scored six in the Dixie game. 54-5- 5(5-5- 4. Hut that didn't matter. He stole Dixie's inbounds pass and called a time-ou- t. Less than 20 seconds vv fouled w hilc driving to he as later, the hoop and stepped to the lute for two free throws. Heroes don't miss free throws. Nielson drained both of them, hitting nothingbut net. The Spartans had tied the score at 5 with 45 seconds remaining. The Flyers decided to hold the ball and shoot the last shot, to either win the game or go into overtime. Dixie missed their attempt with about 12 seconds left and Nielson pulled down the rebound. One of the Fivers must have thought that his team was losing because he intentionally fouled Nielson to stop the clock with 9.5 seconds left. When he realized that he had given Emery a chance to win the game at the free throw line, he was obviously distraught. Nielson once again stepped to the line, this time to give Emery their first lead of the second half. There 5(5-5(- was never any doubt the shots would be good. Heroes dont miss free throws. Again they hit nothing but the net. Dixie had less than 10 seconds to tie or win the game. They quickly moved the ball down the court and took a shot that bounced off the rim. The game wasnt over, however, because there was a foul called on Emery' on the shot with 2.2 seconds left. Now Dixie had the chance to have a hero tie the game. The Dixie player had hit the two free throws with 1:16 left, but his first attempt clanged off the rim and 15-fo- ot Emery's players and fans started to celebrate. He intentionally missed the second shot, tryingto get the rebound and put the ball in to tie the game. But the ball was batted around as time ran out and Emery took the game 58-5The whole game was close, with neither team leadingbv more than seven in the first half. Emery led 4 in the second quarter, but Dixie went on a 12-- 3 run to end the half that gave them a 26-2- 4 lead at halftime. Only five fouls were called on the two teams in the first half. Emerys leading scorers for the game were Ewell and Anderson, both with 18, Nielson with 10, and Jeffs with eight. and Emery made eight played maybe their most exciting game of the year. The following night, Emery had to face Judge Memorial Catholic High School in a game that w'ould decide the consolation champion. The game was close again. Emery jumped out to a 14-- 5 lead thanks to two by Ewell and one by Anderson and Nielson. But after that lead, Emery got only one basket by Jeffs and didnt score for the last 3:20 of the quarter. The Bulldogs scored 1 1 points over that stretch and led Emery at the first quarter break The teams played to a standstill in the second quarter. After Ewells eight points in the first quarter, he scored another eight in the second. But Emery could only cut one point 6. 21-1- 19-1- 6. off Judges lead time and trailed at half- 32-3- 0. Ewell, Anderson, and Nielson led Emery again in the third quarter, seoringseven, seven, and five points, tied the respectively. The Spai-tanscore at the end of the third quarter on two more free throws by Nielson. Emerys season came down to the last eight minutes of the last game. The Spartans fell behind early, but by Ewell and Jeffs gave Emery a 9 lead. Judge tied the score at 61 and then Ewell made a layup and was fouled. He made the free throw and Emery led 1 with 2:23 left. It was an important play because it caused Judge to play catch-u- p the rest of the game. The Bulldogs started fouling Emery with 1:17 left s cold-blood- 61-5- 64-6- Klint Anderson takes a shot. Photos by Ryan Peacock Jason Sjogren shoots inside against Park City in , last weeks state tournament. and the Spartans responded. Sjogren hit four in a row, Nielson hit one and Sjogren made three more. The free throw's won the game for Emery 72-6- 8 and with it came the state 3-- A consolation champi- onship. Ewell ended the game with 29 points, five rebounds, and shot 52.9 per cent from the field and from the line. Anderson, Nielson, and Sjogren each scored 12 points. Anderson had six rebounds, four assists, and shot 71.4 percent from from the field, including range. Nielson had three asfrom sists and was range. Sjogren pulled down nine from the rebounds and was free throw line. Jeffs finished with seven points and four assists. As a team, the Spartans made 1 -5 and over- 21-of-- all from the field. So even though they were outrebounded 30-2- 5 (13--5 on the offensive boards) and Judge had 18 points on turnovers to five for the Spartans, Emerys players great shootingwon them the game. It appeared that the Spartans had learned something about finishing off teams in the fourth quarter from the previous game. They were not going to repeat the mistakes of Dixie so they sealed the win over Judge. So the Spartans didnt win state, but they finished the season with a winning streak They beat two good teams, Dixie and Judge. Emery played like champions in the fourth quarter of those two games, doing every little thing they had to to win the game. Flayers like Anderson and Nielson stepped up w hen the team needed it and Ewell led his team down to the last second. Jeffs, CiY n . kIc Jesse Nielson played tough defense in the tournament and was the hero of one game, hitting four free throws that won the game. ' a freshman, got valuable experience that will help him In comingyears. Spartans games. The season ends, but the school Sjogren played impressively and the county can be proud of thole Spartans, because they played for your glory and their play brought glory. The Spurtans of 2000-20(1- 4 went out as champions. against bigger, taller centers and still made his mark inside. Even Jason Holdawny and Brandon Hansen were instrumental In the . : POOR |