Emery Spartan basketball starts with win over ALA

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This season’s edition of Emery High boys basketball looks to be good if the first game of the season is any indicator. This Spartan team started well, played well in the middle and finished well in this impressive start to the 2009-10 basketball season. Emery defeated American Leadership Academy 91-52 last Tuesday night in Castle Dale.
Derek Tuttle scored the first points of the season on a pair of free throws a minute into the game and finished the quarter with seven points to lead Emery to a 22-11 first quarter lead. All five starters scored in this first quarter as unselfish play seemed to be the order of the day.
Senior point guard Nevin Jensen, after a quiet first quarter, exploded in the second period with 12 points on his way to a game leading 23 points. Emery scored 16 of the first 20 points in the period as the Spartans led 38-15 with 3:14 left to play in the first half. Jensen in the first half also had four rebounds and three assists in sparking his team.
After halftime, it appeared that Emery wanted to get the ball inside and that is exactly what they did as Tuttle and Tanner Procarione scored the first 10 points of the period on short shots as the team did a good job feeding those two the ball and Tanner and Derek did a good job of finishing off the play.
Emery won the third quarter 23-19 as the intensity was down just a little on defense, as one might expect it to be when one has a big lead, and the two teams tied in the final period 20-20 as Emery’s reserves saw a lot of playing time.
Nevin Jensen finished the night with 23 points, 12 assists and four rebounds. Tanner Procarione finished the night with 18 points, seven rebounds, a steal and a blocked shot. Derek Tuttle scored 13 points, had five rebounds and an assist and a steal. Jake Fortner, starting at off-guard, scored nine points and had three assists. The last starter for the Spartans was senior Mark Guymon. Mark finished with eight points, six rebounds, two assists and had a steal.
Emery’s bench played well in the game. Junior Ty Benson scored 11 points in the game to be the leading scorer for the reserves. TJ Furner had a great night filling in along the front line. TJ only scored four points but he pulled down 10 rebounds, had a steal and two blocked shots. Quinn Montgomery scored three points and Kash Jewkes scored two points to close out the bench scoring for the night.