| Emery’s Kyle Johansen gets a hand on the rebound with help from Karson Jensen. |
Through three basketball games last week, the Emery High boys’ basketball team is still struggling to define who they are. At times they are a run and gun type team and then at other times they slow it down and struggle to get off a shot. Emery lost two of those games while winning once.
On Tuesday, the Spartans traveled to Blanding and lost to the San Juan team 70-63. On Friday, Emery defeated Canyon View 43-40 in their opening game of the Coal Country classic. On Saturday, Emery lost to Morgan 63-56 in this year’s final tournament game.
In Blanding, Emery fell behind early and could never quite catch up. They lost the opening quarter 20-11 despite 8 points from Kyle Johansen. Although Emery scored better in the second period, they still the lost the quarter 23-19 to trail at the half 43-30. Johansen scored another 6 points in this period and received scoring help from Dempsey Jeffs as he finished the period with 7 points in the quarter and 9 in the half.
Emery won the last two quarters, 21-18 and 11-9, but it was not enough to snatch a victory. Johansen led Emery in the game with 20 points, Jeffs ended the night with 12 points and Nevin Jensen ended with 13 points, 12 in the second half. Tyler Killpack finished with 7 points, Jordan Gee and Cameron Hansen added 4 points each and Karson Jensen had 2 points.
On Friday in Castle Dale, Emery got the early lead at 13-7 after the opening period but barely led at the half 20-16. Emery had too many turnovers in the opening period, did not rebound very well and despite having the lead, did not play as good of defense as their coach would have liked.
Emery hit three 3-pointers in the period, two by Gee and another by Nevin. Gee hit another three in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, Emery did not take advantage of the Falcons despite Canyon View seeming to want to lose the game. Emery led 31-30 at the end of three periods. Nevin added two more 3-pointers. Emery took the lead at 5-4 in the opening quarter, then saw their lead disappear at 39-40 in the closing minutes of the game. Emery took a timeout with 1:04 left to play in the game. Nevin hit two free throws to put Emery back in the lead.
Canyon View took a time out with 17.5 seconds left and the Emery defense did not allow Canyon View a decent look at the basket when play resumed and Emery got away with the win. Nevin, Dempsey and Jordan all finished with 11 points in the game. Karson had 6 points and Cameron and Kyle had 2 points each.
| Dempsey Jeffs |
On Saturday night, this was almost a tale of two different teams. Emery lost the first and third quarters badly but won the second and fourth periods almost with ease. The score after the opening period was 16-6 for Morgan and Emery was almost shutout in the third period but a 3-pointer by Karson Jensen with 1:25 left in the quarter gave Emery it’s only points of the period. Emery lost the quarter, 17-3.
In the second period, it was a different team on the floor, same guys but a different team. Dempsey led the way with 9 points including two 3’s. And then in the final period, after having scored only 26 points so far in the game, scored 30 points and won the period 30-21. Emery put up shots with a sense of purpose and scored at will.
Five different Spartans hit a 3-pointer in the period. Karson led the way with two 3’s and 10 points. Nevin, Dempsey, Jordan and Gatlan Huntington also each hit a 3-pointer. Jeffs finished with 7 points and Nevin with 5 points in the period.
Dempsey led the team with 16 points followed by Karson with 13 points. Nevin had 8 points, Cameron and Kyle each had 5 points, Jordan finished with 4 points, Gatlan with 3 points and Tyler with 2 points.
Morgan scored the first 8 points of the game along with first 13 points of the third quarter. Emery cut the big lead down to 6 points at 59-53 but could not get any closer.
Emery now hosts Hurricane on Wednesday night.