Spartan basketball falls short in home opener

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports writer

The Emery High Spartan boy’s basketball team opened the 2011-12 season with three games last week. The Spartans won one while losing two. Emery opened the season against the defending 1-A state champions and a favorite to win this season’s 2-A title, the Wasatch Academy Tigers. Emery lost this game 76-64.
Wasatch Academy is a small private school located in Mt. Pleasant. The past several seasons this school has decided to become a basketball powerhouse as they have gone out and found good foreign players to come to central Utah and ply their skills and continue their education. While fans of opposing schools are not fond of this, it is perfectly legal according to UHSAA. This season is no different as foreign names dot their roster and their starting lineup.
Emery, with no starters returning and only one player that saw any playing time returning, is a team in transition as these players figure out who they really are and how do they play as a team. With that in mind, this actually was a decent game for Emery even though they lost. They competed all night and refused to go away when they were down by double digits throughout the game, they continued to compete.
Wasatch was a team that was big, with a height advantage at every position. Not only were they big but also they were also quick and athletic, and despite being big, Wasatch Academy could also shoot the ball well. So despite all the adjectives one could use to describe this Wasatch Academy team, like big, one would have to use as many adjectives to describe how well Emery played this team.
Senior Dallon Cologie led the team with 20 points in the game while Jordan Cox, the only other senior, added 18 points. Brendon Jorgensen and Dawson Jensen each scored eight points while Bailey Faimalo scored six points and Logan Tuttle scored four points.
Emery then played a pair of ball games in a tournament at Duchesne High School. On Friday last week, Emery defeated Rich High 60-53 and then on Saturday Emery lost to host Duchesne by the same score 60-53.
Against Rich, Emery opened up a big first half lead and then held on to win the game. Emery led 15-8 after the first quarter and then led 29-16 at the half. Rich outscored Emery in the third quarter 14-13 and then Rich won the final period 23-18.
Cologie led the way with 25 points against Rich including three 3-pointers. Jensen and Jorgensen each scored 11 points while Cox scored three points and Faimalo and Tuttle each scored two points.
Against Duchesne on Saturday night, the difference in the game came at the free throw line. Emery shot 25 free throws in the game while Duchesne shot 45 times at the free throw line. Nearly half of Duchesne’s points came from free throws.
Emery was down 16-14 after period one, Emery was down 26-22 after the first half and then the Spartans were down 42-34 going into the final period.
Faimalo and Jorgensen were the leading scorers in this game with 11 points each. Jorgensen had three 3-pointers and Faimalo had two. Cologie scorednine points, Tuttle scored six points, Corbin Butler scored three points and Jensen scored one point.
Emery will be at home for two preseason games this week. On Wednesday, Emery will host Canyon View and on Friday, Emery will host Millard. Varsity games start at around 7 p.m. with the first action of the day starting at 3:30 p.m. for those basketball junkies who can’t get enough.