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Show ?f V , A ; kTmzj .... - - - .5 Theresa Laita fJ'J), sunoumlal l iuifiise (.'.le.n field pressui r, drew lots ot atiaiiion and praise for lu-r plav in state. i - f . '. t i '. " 'A vy" I - ' ..-V A'' v , V,v ,p 1,!J ! . ' ... - y ' A - -' UU k I ( ' - ' Shanna Knudsi-n (11) and I.ynne Htn ninliain put the double team on Cleat field. I- V- With Lisa Jones (23) shoring up the middle, the Falcons opted f or other avenues to the basket. Young; Brave Team Now Has State Experience ,y DAVE WIG HAM ,T pper Sports BOUNTIFUL -- For years now ihe high chool basketball coaches, boys and girls, ave been saying thai there is no replacement arsute tournament experience. SOME MAY not buy that while others just lijht. One coach that certainly believes it tnudays is Bountiful's girls coach Jill Avery, n her second year as head coach for the gals fl coached the team to a 5-5 region record ,-feich was good enough for a third place region inish and an invitation to the state 4 A tournament. tourna-ment. Last week the Braves, with only one senior that plays much varsity ball, showed up to the state event as tense as any team could. "To be honest about the entire thing the girls let the name of a state tournament get to them. As coaches we could see it coming, their eyes were huge and they were extremely tight the two games we played in." THAT WAS evident in the first half of their opening round game against Cottonwood. When the half time buzzer sounded and the Bountiful faithfuls looked at the scoreboard their team only had eight points to show. "We had the shots but they wouldn't fall for us" noted coach Avery. "When we looked at the stats after the game we found out we hit on 21 percent of our first half shots. You don't win too many games shooting like that." But the Braves showed some guts and came back on the Colts and even had their chances to pull out the win. "We caught them in the final minutes but we couldn't get ahead of them" Avery added. DURING THE third period Ihe Braves made their move with junior guard Theresa Laita hitting from the outside, when the night was over she had 14 points for hercfTorts. She was helped in the scoring department by senior Julie Rampton 6, Shanna Knudson 4 and Lyn-ne Lyn-ne Burningham another 3. It was amazing that Knudson could even place since she just got her foot out of a cast. One thing that didn't help the Braves in their quest for victory was their inability to hit foul shots, for the night they only hit on six of 17 attempts. THE LOSS sent the Bountiful side into the consolation bracket against one of the pre-tournament pre-tournament favorites Clearfield. It was in this game that Jill Avery saw some promise and hope for the future. "Once again we were really real-ly tentative and tight in the first half but then the girls played extremely well in the second half and it wasn't until the final two minutes that Clearfield pulled away from us." Clearfield built up a ten point advantage at the half 22-12, only to watch the hustling Braves outscore then 8-4 in the third period for a Clearfield 26-20 lead going into the fourth period. The two sides traded buckets during the first six minutes of the quarter, the closest the Braves got was four points, with the Falcons Fal-cons pulling away to the final 38-31 score. ONCE AGAIN Theresa Laita led the Braves with 10 points followed by Julie Rampton 7, Lynne Burningham 6, Shanna Knudson 4 and Lisa Jones with 2. ' ' We learned a lot about the tournament having hav-ing played there once now. We lose one senior and she's a good one in Julie Rampton, but the rest of the team is back. The region is tough again next year but we expect bigger things from our gals" Avery summed up. And now they have some experience in the state event the Braves will be counting on better things in next year's state event. |