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Show SU downs the cold Gold By TIM MAXWELL JO URNAL SPORTS EDITOR There was supposed to be two " teams on the floor during last night's 68-40 SU victory in the Centrum, but fo r the first 13 minutes of the game it sure didn' t seem like it. That was how long it took for the UC-Colorado Springs Gold to make a single basket. By that time the 'Birds had built a 21 point advantage and the game was in the bag. It was tough to tell in those first 13 minutes whether it was SU's outstanding defense or the Gold's horrendous shooting that caused the 21-0 run. The Gold's leading scorer, Larry Williams, finally broke the scoring drough t with a layup followed by a three-pointer. Beside Williams' brief flashes of talent, the game belonged to the 'Birds. During the Gold's dismal scoreless streak, SU managed to sink fo ur three-pointers while UC. Colorado Springs racked up eight personal fo uls. The 'Birds only shot 63 percent from the foul line or the score could have been much worse. SU tOok a 36-16 lead into the locker room at the half and never let up. T he Gold came out in the second half as cold as they had left the first. For the opening 10 minutes of the final half, UCColorado Springs had more fo uls jsix) than points. Most impressive was the way the 'Birds sh ut down the Gold starters. SU's fohn Gaines (SJ pulls up for a iumper with UC-Colorado's Ch ris Kelly (42) right Three of UC-Colorado Springs' starters, including the team's in his face. The 'Birds buried the Gold last night in the Centrum, 68-40. leading scorer, went the entire game without a single point. However, like a coach would, 'Bird Head Coach Bill Evans saw several th ings the team needs be · doing better. " There's a lot of things we need to work on. We turned the ball over too much, 11 said Evans. "also, we're shooting about 73 percent [from th e foul line] for the season, but in the last three or four games we're not get ting it done." SU was led in scoring by Mark Schweigert who had 11 points. Da...")'l Christopher added 10, and Brad Bodily also scored 10 in the contest. Don Faux had another solid ga me inside with eight points and seven rebounds. Williams led the Gold in scoring with 10, and Roger Cavazos had eight. Michael Fleuck, who had six points, was the only other player on the team with over five points. The 'Birds' hot three-point shooting of the first half (46 percent) cooled off a bit in the second half (13 percent), but SU still finished with a 33 percent average. The 'Birds hit 46 percent of all of their shots for the ga me. SU also won the all-important rebounding battle with 39 compared to UCColorado Springs' 29. The Gold had a m uch less successful night of shooting. They finished 3 1 percent from the field and 30 percent from beyond the arc. They also committed 24 personal fouls compared to just 11 for SU. SU's record now stands at l -7 after stopping a three-game losing skid, while the Gold fall to 3-11. 'Bird cagers to host UNI Friday Deckart natned The nation's leading scorer, Jason Daisy, will lead the visiting Panthers Eleven years ago, when the Centrum was built, games like the one this Friday night are what the powers that be had in mind 7 high caliber opponents with high caliber players coming to Cedar City. Northern Iowa comes to color country with a 7-3 record that includes an impressive road win at Nebras ka an d a narrow loss to the nationallyranked Iowa Haw keyes. T he Panthers will also have one of the nation's top scorers, Jason Daisy, in tow. Daisy, who led the nation in scoring with a 30+ per game average until jus t after Christmas, has " cooled" a bit to just over 25 points per outing, but he still ranks ahead of names like Tim D uncan of Wake Forest, Kerry Kittles of Villanova and Marcus . Cam by of top-ran ked UMASS. Add to those t hings the fact that UNI dished out a pretty good beating to Southern Utah on Nov. 26th in Cedar Falls and the Friday night intrigue should be near the high-water mark for hoops in southern Deseret . T he Nov. 26 game in Iowa was the first against a Division I opponent for six of the players on this year's Thunderbird roster and it showed. UNI got up early and then withs tood a late SUU rally to get the win. Since then, the Panthers seem to have gotten better and they have three wins on the road in four tries as proof. I The 'Birds are definitely better than they were two months ago and they might have some extra incenti ve for the visiting Panthers. Several SUU players say they were disrespected as they left the UN I-Dome by some of the Panther faithful. In other words, Jan. 12 has been circled on the calendar for awhile and there's nothing the 'Birds would like more than to send UNI back to Missouri Valley Conference play with a loss. "Northern Iowa's got a very good basketball team. They are better than the Oral Roberts team that beat us here last week and we'll have to play an excellen t game to get the win," says SUU Head Coach Bill Evans. "We're going to need the homecourt advantage that our fa ns give us. " Evans says the crowd support th at SUU has had over the las t couple of games, and the Oral Roberts game in particular, helps the program in ways that most fans don' t even realize. "Besides what a nice crowd does fo r you during the game, it's very important to recruiting and to getting good teams to come here and play," says Evan s. "Good players and teams don't want to play for empty seats. " No doubt about it, Friday night's game will be a good one and, hopefully, it will be a nice appetizer for the looming Weber State game at the end of the month. All-American Southern Utah University tight end Micah Deckart has benn named to the American Football Quarterly NCAA Division I All-America squad, it was announced Monday at the American Football .Coaches Association Convention in New Orleans, La. Deckart, a 6-foot-3, 215-pound tight end from St. George, Utah , caugh t 38 passes for 65 1 yards and four touchdowns this season. He averaged 17.1 yards per catch, 59.2 yards and 3 .5 catches per game for the 'Birds. The team was selected by the editorial and research staff of American Football Quarterly. - --. Members of the team were selected based upon their individual accomplishments and th eir contributions to their respeeti ve teams. Deckart is the third 'Bird to attain All-America honors this season, joining defensive end Jeff Galyean and punter Craig Van Woerkom, who were selected by voters in the Don Hansen's Football Gazette poll. Micah Deckart |