Winning week for Emery Spartan basketball

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports Writer

The Emery High Lady Spartans continued their winning ways in region 15 basketball with two hard-fought victories last week. At home on Tuesday night, Emery defeated a young but talented North Sevier team 49-47 and then on Thursday evening, the team traveled to Monroe to face a tough South Sevier team and the Spartans won 44-41. With the two victories, Emery now stands at 3-0 in region with two more games coming up this week, the first at home against Grand this Tuesday and then on Thursday the team will travel to Mt Pleasant to face Wasatch Academy.
Center Bailey Rasmussen has developed as the heart of the team and is shooting the ball really well and led the team in scoring in both games last week. Rasmussen had 15 points in the first game and 14 points in the second and Bailey is shooting at a decent percentage. Rasmussen is also a leading rebounder for the team along with dishing out assists and coming up with steals.
North Sevier grabbed a 10-0 lead to start the game as the Spartans had six straight turnovers to start the game. Emery trailed after the first quarter 14-6. Emery reversed their fortunes in the second quarter of the game as they held the Wolves without a field goal for close to six minutes of the eight-minute period and won the quarter 17-7 as Rasmussen scored 9 points in the quarter.
In the third quarter, the Wolves battled back to regain the lead at 37-34 as missed shots and turnovers stymied the offensive effort. Emery was outscored 16-11 in the quarter. With Ashton Bell scoring 7 points in the final period including the final five points of the game, Emery won the quarter 15-10 and the game by two points.
At South Sevier, Emery led by one point after the first quarter and then won the second quarter 10-2 to lead at the half 24-15. South Sevier narrowed the gap in the third quarter as the Lady Rams won the period 18-12 and Emery now led by only three points. Both teams scored eight points in the final quarter and Emery had the upset win. It is not easy for a visitor to win in Monroe.
In the North Sevier game, Camrey Johnson was the second leading scorer with 10 points and Bell had 9 points. Bayler Griffin scored 6 points, Lexi Huntington scored 4 points, Emily Olsen scored 3 points and Cassidy Labrum scored 2 points.
In the South Sevier game, Griffin was the second leading scorer with 8 points followed by Johnson with 6 points, bell with 5 points, Huntington and Olsen with 4 points each and Labrum with 3 points. Johnson had the only three-pointers against North Sevier with two and then she also had a pair against South Sevier. Labrum also had one against the Rams.
Tyson Roper scored just a single basket in Friday night’s region 15 opener for the Emery High Spartans but what a basket it was. After trailing the entire basketball game, Emery had tied the score at 59-59 with 48 seconds remaining in regulation and San Juan had possession of the ball. As the Broncos ran their offense the ball came loose and Roper ended up with it and he was off to the races. Although he had a couple of teammates with him on the fast break, and you could read his body language as to what to do, he decided the best option was to keep the ball, drive to the hoop and he scored to put Emery up for the first time in the entire game with 23 seconds remaining.
The Spartan team on the floor consisting of Roper, Ridge Nielson, Bowdie Jacobsen and Kolton and Koby Butler then held off the Broncos final attempt at scoring and the Spartans had the win wrestled from the jaws of defeat.
You need to look at the first three quarters of the game to really appreciate this win. In the first quarter Emery worked hard to tie the score at 8-8 only to see San Juan score eight points in under a minute to lead after one period 16-8. In the second quarter, Emery again found themselves battling and got the score to within three near the end of the half but the Broncos again responded and hit three straight three-pointers to take the lead back to nine points and 29-20.
In the third quarter, Emery made just one of 11 attempts from the field and had seven turnovers to go along with that sub-standard shooting.
Thanks to four straight made free throws by Koby Butler, Emery lost the period 9-7 and trailed 38-27 going into that fourth quarter. Emery made just a single basket on 11 attempts in this quarter and had seven turnovers to go along with the lack of scoring.
After San Juan scored three times on their first four possessions of the period and the Broncos had extended their lead to 15 points, the craziness began. Emery scored on six of their next seven possessions to narrow the gap to 47-41 in favor of San Juan with 4:13 left on the game clock. Over that final time, Emery scored on their final eight possessions and 10 of their final 12 while forcing San Juan into five turnovers and a couple of missed shots.
“Once we decide to play, we are a pretty good team. You guys never gave up, good job,” was Coach Todd Jeffs first words to the team after the game. He added, “free throws won this game for us, congratulations on coming back and winning like that.” Emery was 19 for 23 from the free throw line in the game with Kolton Butler making eight straight in the final three minutes of the game including the two to tie the score at 59.
After having scored just 27 points in the first three quarters of the game, the Spartans tacked on 34 points in that final eight minutes. They went from scoring just over a point a minute to scoring over four points a minute, quite a change. In that final quarter, Koby Butler scored 10 points, Jacobsen scored 9 points and Kolton Butler scored 8 points.
Koby was the leading scorer for the game with 20 points followed by Kolton and Jacobsen. Those two scored all their points in that final period. Ridge Nielson, who could have been out of town for this game came out and played maybe his best game ever as a Spartan. He knocked down four out of six three-point attempts on his way to scoring 14 points. His shooting kept Emery in the game in the first three quarters.
Dillon Wilstead, in the midst of learning to play the point guard position, scored six points before fouling out. Kevin Butler scored two points in the first quarter for his only points of the game. Koby had 7 rebounds to lead the team with Kolton and Dillon each bringing down 6 rebounds. Wilstead led the team with 5 assists and Kolton led the team with 4 steals. Koby had 3 blocked shots in the game.
Emery will host a surprisingly good North Sevier this Wednesday and then will travel to South Sevier this Friday as region battles continue. Emery needs the seats to be full to cheer them on to victory in these key region contests.