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Show p,... , . .,.,.,.. , , m , r -- "" ' " l : ' ' . . , -v; i i ) ) v-. , c r ," ' J'..s"J.i.'Vn,-: '-; 3;.. - ' . r ,.) ' --.- ,j U r :' All Star Player on the Escalante Moqui team, 40 Jason Griffin goes for basket in this final Escalante Moquis First Time To State; Place Second in Region 12 By John Yardley The Escalante Moquis played in the Round Robin championship for the first time in their history Saturday Satur-day afternoon in Cedar City. Although the Moquis lost to Valley 53-38, they still were able to qualify qual-ify for the state tournament and represent rep-resent Region 12 as the second place team. The big highlight for Escalante was a three-point shot at the buzzer on the first day by Jason Griffin, which gave the Moquis the most thrilling of "Hoosiers" victories 67-66 67-66 over Enterprise. In that game, Gerald Roundy drilled six three-pointers three-pointers for 24 in total ad Ryan Carter played the perfect point-guard with 16. Finishing behind Valley and Escalante were Piute third, Pangui-tch Pangui-tch fourth and Bryce Valley fifth. Valley played the most consistent basketball of any team in the tournament. tour-nament. Coach Jim Hoyt and crew were really the best team during the weekend. Wes Troy, a real player for four years at Valley, was the player of the week, in this writer's opinion. Panguitch and Bryce Valley locked up in a real dog-fight on opening day. The teams combined to shoot 89 free-throws! Each team had chances to win down the stretch, with PHS outlasting the Mustangs, 58-56. The second day, Escalante buried championship game against the Valley Buffaloes. Buf-faloes. Even with loss 53-38, Moquis take 2nd. Panguitch 63-32, Valley upset Piute 58-46 and Bryce Valley got past Enterprise 79-71. On the championship day, the Moquis seemed to be tired out. Not one of Jim Smith's players hit double figures fig-ures as they only scored the 38 points. Piute defeated Panguitch 66-49 and Bryce Valley beat Mil-ford Mil-ford 65-58 for the consolation championship. Named to the all-tournament team were: Gerald Round and Jason Griffin, Escalante; Mike Ahlstrom and David Shakespear, Bryce Valley; Val-ley; Markay Englestead, Panguitch; Wes Troy and Jared Hoyt, Valley; Jared Robinson, Piute; Dax Anderson, Ander-son, Wayne and Greg Farnsworth, Enterprise. The teams now have a week off before the state tournament begins in Cedar City at the Centrum, March 10-13. Bryce Valley will play the fifth place team from Region Re-gion 13 next Monday, most likely at Richfield to solidify their spot in the finals. If the Mustangs go ahead and win, which they should, here is how the three teams from our county would be scheduled for the opening day. At 11:30 a.m. Panguitch would play the second place team from Region 11. Escalante would take on the fourth place team from Region Re-gion 1 1 at 4:30 in the lower bracketing brack-eting and Bryce Valley would tangle with the Region 11 number one team at 7:30 p.m. Imagine that draw of a number one team taking on a healthy! It certainly will not be like playing an ordinary fifth seed. In other region seeding, Valley opens the tournament at 10:00 a.m. against the Region 1 1 sixth place team and Piute plays Region 13 third place team at 1:00 p.m. Congratulations to all the teams for getting into the state tournament. tourna-ment. Especially, however, most all fans in the area are proud of the Escalante Moquis and coaches Jim Smith and Brent Cottam. This has been a long time coming and the team and communities involved deserve de-serve all the credit in the world. Great work, MOQUIS! |