Sports

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports Writer

The San Rafael Bulldogs captured the tournament championship on Feb. 17 at San Rafael Junior High. The Bulldogs jumped out to an early lead with the ball finding its way under the basket to the big men for a majority of the points as they led by 17-4 at the end of one quarter.
The Mont Harmon Pirates came charging back into the ball game in the second quarter as they narrowed the score to 30-22 at the half. During halftime there were performances by the Mont Harmon and San Rafael cheerleaders.
At the end of the third quarter the Bulldogs were up by a score of 46-29. Trevor Mitcheson for the Bulldogs found himself sitting on the bench with four fouls. A couple of turnovers by San Rafael quickly converted to points by the Pirates. Fouls called on San Rafael and made free throws by the Pirates brought them to within 12 at 7:27 to play in the game. The Pirates crawled to within 10 points. Cody Allen added two free throws to the Bulldog tally. Jason Child for the Pirates added a 3 point shot to bring them within 10 again with 4:15 left in the game.

Allen put in a jumper and Tyson Stevens for the Pirates added 2 points and then Child hit for a three to bring the score to 51 Bulldogs and 44 Pirates. San Rafael lost the ball and the Pirates recovered. A foul on Mont Harmon brought the ball back to the Bulldog side of the floor and the score stood at 51-44 with 2:30 to go in the game. Allen dropped in 2 points and Mont Harmon dropped in two to remain within 7 points. A traveling call on Mont Harmon gave the ball back to the Bulldogs and then Mont Harmon called a timeout to talk things over with the clock at 1:56 and the score 53-46.
The referees called an interesting foul on Mitcheson and he had to sit down with five fouls. This gave the ball back to Mont Harmon with 1:15 to go. The inbounds pass was tipped out a couple of times by the Bulldogs and Child was able to add 2 points to the Pirate total to bring them within 2 points of the Bulldogs.
The Pirates foul Nick Larson and he misses the foul shot and Mont Harmon snags the rebound. The score stands at 53-51 with the clock down to 31.1 seconds. Mont Harmon inbounds the pass and throws the ball around and San Rafael gets a hand on it. Mont Harmon throws the ball away with 7.7 left to play. The ball comes back to San Rafael and Allen is fouled while shooting and puts in the two free throws to put the game away for the Bulldogs. The clock expires with a final score of 55 San Rafael and 51 Pirates.
The winning Bulldogs took home the tournament trophy and the Mont Harmon Pirates took home the league champions trophy.

With a win in the Region 16 tournament in Castle Dale, the Green River Pirate basketball season is still alive and will continue their play this week. The Pirates faced the Rich Rebels on Thursday and lost a close game 65-59. On Friday, in a must win to play again game; the Pirates defeated the Whitehorse Raiders 62-48. On Saturday, the Pirates faced the Altamont Longhorns and lost another close game 40-36.
The Pirates inconsistency has concerned Coach Stan Parsons all season, We sometimes play offense, we sometimes play defense, we sometimes even play an entire game. We need to play to our potential. Before the Rich game he said, We need to be good on defense today to be able to do anything. Our offense is coming along, but our defense has to be there.
Against Rich, a not so good first half led to their downfall as a great second half was not quite good enough. Rich got out to an early lead of 14-10 after the first period as Green River had the open shot that they wanted but were unable to convert the attempt to points.
The second period saw the Rebels outscore the Pirates by 10 points as they went to the half leading Green River 37-23. The Pirates aided the Rebel cause with too many turnovers in the period and were a little soft on defense as Rich got to the basket way to easy.
In the second half, a different Pirate team came from the locker room as they played way more confidently and executed their game plan on offense better. They outscored Rich 21-17 in the period. Jake Mecham led the way with 9 points and Kaden Robertson added six more.
In the fourth quarter, the Pirates went on a 9-2 run and cut the score to 56-53. With the score at 61-59 Rich, the Pirate offense was unable to score again after they fouled Rich to get the ball back as Rich stalled. Rich went to the line three times in the last minute and shot free throws and each time the Pirates ended their possession with a turnover to seal their loss.
Parsons had this to say after the game, We were not sharp today, we waited too long to be good. We allowed them too big of an advantage.
Mecham led the Pirate scoring with 23 points followed by Robertson with 14 points. Cody Webster had 8 points and Hyrum Mitchell and Kaleb Fail had 7 points each.
On Friday against Whitehorse, the Pirates used a huge fourth quarter to erase a Raider lead. After trailing 40-39 after the third period, Green River outscored their opponent 23-8 in that final period to secure the victory and more importantly, the opportunity to play the next week.
Webster had a big game as he scored 26 points to lead the offense. Mecham added 12 points and Fail added 11 points. Also scoring were Robertson and Mitchell with 4 points each, Brent Johnson and Parker Hatt each had 2 points and Jace Vetere had a single point.
On Saturday, in a game that was only for region seeding and pride, the Pirates lost another close game to Altamont. Green River led after the first and second periods and was tied after the third period at 30-30. It was the last two minutes of the game before Altamont was able to pull away with a 3-pointer and win the game.
Mecham led the way with 13 points; Robertson added 9 points and Webster scored 8 points. Also scoring were Johnson with 4 points and Mitchell with 2 points.
Green River now plays a game against Piute on Feb. 28, for the right to travel to Southern Utah University to play in the 1-A State tournament.
If they defeat Piute, they will play Wednesday at 4 pm against either Dugway or West Desert, who finished tied in Region 18.
Their opponent will be decided by a coin flip.