Lady Spartans win two

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports Writer

After nine straight wins the Emery High Spartan basketball team suffered a loss last Friday night in a game played at Monroe against South Sevier High School. It might have been the Emery High faithful that actually suffered the most in this one point loss at the hands of Rams. Final score was 54-53.
If one just looks at the box score, one would see that this was a close game throughout but if one was watching or listening on the radio to the game, they would have been seeing a completely different picture, especially in the fourth quarter.
Emery and South Sevier were tied after the first quarter at 15-15 and then Emery led at the half 24-22, a close game no doubt. Emery extended their lead in the third quarter to 38-29, a comfortable lead in a road game. In the final quarter Emery was outscored 25-15 and South Sevier gained a win.
Emery led by nine points after the third quarter. In the fourth quarter Emery improved their lead from 38-29 to 50-34 with half the quarter gone and then the wheels came off for the Spartans.
Leading by 16 points with under four minutes to play, all of sudden Emery could not make a free throw, could not make a lay-up, could not hold onto the ball. Emery was outscored 20-3 over the final minutes of the game.
Even the final Ram score came after a turnover by Emery which led to a fast break opportunity which led to an uncontested layup by a Ram player with one second remaining on the clock and just like that Emery had converted a road win into a road loss.
“We choked, all of us including myself,” were the words of Coach Todd Jeffs. Everyone was second guessing the game that just slipped away. The opportunities for the win were there but nothing saved the day and the game. It was just one of those times that the opponent gets hot and you do not. South Sevier, after being down by 16, hit four straight three-pointers to narrow the gap late in the game and from there on out they could do no wrong.
Gavin McDermott had a big game for the Spartans as he was both the leading scorer and the leading rebounder. He scored 18 points and pulled down 13 rebounds. Season-long leading scorers Bailey Faimalo and Dillon Wilstead finished the game with 8 and 11 points respectively as they were harassed and double teamed all game long as the Rams were determined that these two were not going to beat them.
McKlane Allred, who had played his best game of the season in the earlier game last week, scored 20 points against North Sevier, was second in scoring in this game with 12 points. Also scoring against the Rams were Drexler Tanner and Kevin Butler with 2 points each. Earlier in the week Emery hosted North Sevier and easily won the game 70-47 after leading at the half 40-20. Besides Allred’s scoring, McDermott finished with 14 points, Wilstead had 9 points, Tanner had 8 points, Faimalo had 6 points, Tai Justice had 5 points, Butler had 3 points, Beau Roundy and Jackson Jensen each had 2 points and Bryce Dugmore had 1 point.
Emery will now try to get back into their winning ways this week. The Spartans have just a single game this week, a road trip to Mt. Pleasant to play the number one ranked 2-A team Wasatch Academy. Wasatch Academy is 13-1 on the season with wins over bigger Utah schools Orem and Timpview in an earlier Las Vegas tournament. The loss came last Saturday night in a tournament in Anchorage, Alaska when they lost by one point after having won two earlier games up north.