| Ashley Hansen and Alexis Swasey look for the rebound. |
Despite not having a great week on the basketball floor, the Emery High Lady Spartans are preparing to host a play-in game this weekend. Emery snuck out of Delta with a 56-49 win despite not playing well and then came home and lost their only region contest of the year to the Carbon High Lady Dinos 53-47.
At Delta, Emery got out to a 10-point halftime lead and then hung on for the victory. The games last week reminded fans of the horrid trip to St George in December where Emery seemed to be celebrating the Holiday season early. Now the thought is that they were celebrating winning the region championship early instead of concentrating on the tasks at hand.
Alexis Swasey was the leading scorer in Delta with 16 points. She had a hot hand in the second quarter as she scored 11 points. Camille Fehlberg was the only other Emery player in double figures as she scored 15 points.
Also scoring in the game were Ashley Hansen with 7 points, Jodi Lundell and Shala Pitchforth with 4 points each, Callie Seeley with 3 points and Tahna Merrell and Rachel Rasmussen with 2 points each.
Against Carbon, Emery led after the first quarter 15-12 but then lost each of the next three quarters to lose the game. They lost the periods 12-8, 11-9 and 18-15.
Emery did not play smart or effective in this game while the Dinos came to play. Carbon needed a win to claim second place in region and a home play-in game and they earned the win out on the floor.
This was a game that Emery could not seem to grab a rebound, get hold of a loose ball or hit an open shot. Even though they played below their capabilities Emery grabbed a 41-38 lead midway through the fourth quarter on two free throws by Alexis but never again led in the game as Carbon scored the next 12 points.
Head Coach Steve Gordon laid it out for them after the game, “Nobody wanted to step up and take charge and be a leader in this game. I hope that this will be a wake up call. We never rebounded even though every time out we talked about rebounding. Tonight we had no effort.”
He added, “I don’t feel like cutting down the nets even though that is what you do when you are region champs.” They did go back out and cut the nets down.
Leading scorer in the Carbon game was Camille with 19 points. Camille also had 8 steals in the game and her usual assists but she still had an off game, as she also seemed to be putting forth less than a 100 percent effort.
Shala was next leading scorer with 8 points and also had 2 rebounds and 2 blocks. Alexis added 7 points while Ashley had 6 points and 5 rebounds. Callie hit a 3-pointer for 3 points and Jodi and Rachel had 2 points each. Jodi was the leading rebounder on the floor with seven.
Emery started the five seniors on the team minus Natalee as she rested her knee for the third straight game in anticipation of the playoffs. Some thought this threw off the rotation but they led 9-2 when the team started returning to their normal rotation. When Emery comes to compete they win pretty easily. In each of their four losses it seemed that they were just happy to be there. Emery finished the season with a 17-4 record and will now host Union, 11 wins 9 losses, in the Spartan Center this Friday night at 7 p.m. for the privilege to travel to Weber State the next week.