| Spartans defeat Carbon in a game earlier this season. |
The Emery Spartans defeated the Carbon Dinos for the second time this season and continued to share the Region 8 lead with the Lehi Pioneers. Emery defeated Carbon by a score of 50-39 to take their record in region play to 4-1, the same as the Pioneers who defeated Delta the same night.
Emery started the game off like they were an offensive powerhouse as the outscored the Dinos 18-8 in the opening period. With good ball movement and stingy defense, the Spartans got out to a 9-0 lead. All five starters for Emery played a style of ball that we have not been accustomed to this season as they took it to the hoop and found pay dirt.
In the second quarter, Emery scored the first 5 points of the period enroute to holding Carbon to only 4 points while scoring 10 points of their own. Emery’s defense forced Carbon into eight straight turnovers at the end of the period.
The second half was a very physical half of ball as the Carbon Dinos were determined to not go down without a fight (literally at one point). Many fouls were called on the Dinos and there probably should have been many more as they closely shadowed the Emery players.
Carbon outscored Emery in the fourth quarter 16-11 to close out the ball game. Coach Jeffs sent his sophomores in with one minute to go and a 15 point lead.
Leading scorer for the Spartans was Joey Bernard with 12 points including 6-6 at the free throw line. Davey Justice added 11 points. Also scoring for Emery were Darrin Winn with 9 points, Mike Blomquist with 7 points, Daniel Espino with 5 points, Josh Eden with 4 points and Bodee Marshall with 2 points.
Blomquist and Winn fouled out of the ballgame. Emery was 21-27 at the free throw line, 13-27 on 2-point shots and 1-4 behind the 3-point line. Emery had 12 steals in the game led by Espino’s three. They also had four blocks and 27 rebounds. Winn led the way with eight rebounds, followed by Bernard with five rebounds and Blomquist with four rebounds.
Head Coach Todd Jeffs spoke after the game, “We played better tonight as we got a 20 point lead but we did not play to finish it. We’ve got to finish off games like this better. Carbon knew they were in a ball game tonight as our kids were ready to play at the start.”
When asked to look ahead, he said “This win tonight guarantees us a play-off spot, now we have to keep going and make sure we get the home court for the first round of the play-offs. We got to get Delta next week since they snuck in a win over Lehi a couple of weeks ago.”
Emery is on the road Wednesday at Delta and Friday at North Sanpete. Emery defeated both teams at home earlier.