| Natalee Hanson scrambles for the ball against Delta. |
Last week was a great week for the Emery High Lady Spartans as they thoroughly dominated region foes Delta and Carbon in basketball. On Tuesday, Emery defeated Delta 54-38 in the Spartan Center and then on Thursday traveled to Price and defeated the host team 61-31.
Emery won every facet of the Carbon game as they executed on offense and defense almost to perfection, handing the defending state champions their worst loss in years. Carbon Head Coach Bruce Bean said the last time Carbon was beaten this bad was the year Union won state, and that was years ago. Coach Bean added, “Emery executed really well and we didn’t. Emery is a great team. They took us totally out of our game.”
Emery had four players that scored at least 9 points and six players that had at least five individual stats in the game. Individual stats are rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. Emery Head Coach Steve Gordon on his players, “This was a great effort. If we can have that every night, we will make hay. Everybody contributed, everybody was ready to play, this was great. This was a quality win. We beat a pretty good team, the defending state champs, on their own floor.”
To start the game, Emery had three straight turnovers before Jodie Lundell finally hit for 2 points. This is to be expected in a rivalry game, as players are just normally tight to start. After falling behind 5-6, Emery loosened up and scored the next nine points to grab a 14-6 lead before Carbon finished out the quarter with a 2-point basket. Camille Fehlberg paced the Spartans with 8 points and 3 steals in the quarter.
In the second quarter, both teams played great defense as the teams were only able to score a total of 13 points in the period. Emery won the quarter 9-4 to lead at the half 23-12. Jodie hit a three in the period to finish the half with 7 points and Shala Pitchforth had 4 points as she scored twice inside. Shala did a great job on the boards all night as she finished with at least 10 rebounds.
A smothering Emery defense confused the Dinos in the third quarter as Emery opened the quarter on a 13-0 run, as no one on the Carbon team looked like they wanted the ball in their hands let alone to shoot the ball. Carbon finally scored on a couple of free throws just after four minutes were gone and Jamie King hit Carbon’s first field goal with 2:18 left in the quarter. Emery won the period 20-6 to lead 43-18.
Emery won the final quarter 18-13 to dominate the game. Scoring for Emery were Camille with 14 points, Shala with 10 points, Alexis Swasey and Jodie with 9 points each, Ashley Hansen and Tahna Merrell with 4 points each, Callie Seeley and Natalee Hanson each with a three pointer, Meagan Pearson and Shalae Cox with 2 points and Jodi Robertson with a free throw.
Coach Gordon told his players after the game, “The press was pretty effective tonight. Everybody was active and hustling. We shot the ball pretty well tonight and everybody executed. Great game.”
Against Delta, Emery used a good third quarter to break open the game and then cruised to another region win. After leading 28-19 at the half, Emery won the third quarter 11-2 to lead 39-21 at the break.
Emery scored the first 7 points of the game with Alexis scoring the first four, to grab a lead that they would never let go of.
Delta was kept off stride by Emery’s smothering defense. Emery held Delta to only 2 fourth quarter points before the subs hit the floor. Emery held Delta’s top scorer to only three points in the game.
Camille led the team with 16 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and a blocked shot. Jodie hit four 3-pointers and finished with 14 points and 4 rebounds. Natalee and Alexis each had 6 points, 2 rebounds and a steal. Ashley had 5 points, ShiAnne Allred had 4 points late in the final quarter and Meagan and Callie each had a basket. Shala had 10 rebounds and 3 blocked shots to contribute to the win.
Emery went 5-0 through the first half of region play with the second half starting this Thursday with Emery traveling to North Sanpete.