The Emery High boy’s basketball team picked up another pair of region victories last week as they defeated both Grand High School and San Juan High School. Emery defeated San Juan on Wednesday night in the Spartan Center by the score of 88-65, a game they grabbed the lead early and then built that lead to a comfortable win. On Friday night, the Spartans hosted the Red Devils and won the game 61-50 as Grand refused to go away and stayed right with the Spartans most of the night.
Grand scored the first two points of the game on their first possession but then did not score again in the first quarter until they sank a pair of free throws with 2:30 left in the period.
Emery scored 13 points in the first period as Koby Butler could not be stopped and he scored 10 points in the quarter.
The second quarter was almost all Grand as Emery made just one shot out of 10 tries in the quarter and that basket came on the very last possession of the half as Kolton Butler finally scored from the field for Emery. Emery was six of nine from the free throw line in the quarter. Grand, on the other hand, got 17 shots off and made five of those and trailed 21-18 at the half.
Koby scored nine points in the third quarter and Emery won the period 17-15 to lead by five after three periods. The fourth quarter came down to free throws for Emery as they shot 19 of them and made 14.
Koby made two shots from the field early on, with one being from behind the three-point line, and the Spartans scored on seven of their final eight possessions to win the game with a little breathing room but they knew that they had been in a game.
Koby scored 29 points on nine of 19 shooting from the field and 10 of 13 at the line. He also grabbed 17 rebounds with 10 of those coming on offense. He also had three blocked shots and a steal for a good game from the senior center. Bowdie Jacobson scored 15 points as he went 13 for 14 at the free throw line, missing the first shot on his final appearance at the line. Bowdie also had 3 rebounds and five assists and handled the ball well against the Grand pressure.
Kolton Butler scored 9 points, grabbed 15 rebounds, had a steal and six assists as he played well. Zach Jorgensen scored 5 points and Easton Gordon scored 3 points. Emery went one for 15 behind the three-point line with just that shot from Koby going in, not a typical night of shooting from this Emery team.
Against San Juan who is tied with Grand for second place in the region behind the Spartans, Emery went up by 10 points after the first quarter at 22-12, won the second quarter 17-10 to lead 39-22 at the half and then won the third quarter 23-17 before both teams scored 26 points in the final quarter.
Emery was led by Jorgensen with 21 points and he was closely followed by Jacobson and Koby with 18 points each.
Gordon scored 13 points to also finish in double figures in the game. Kolton scored 6 points, Kyson Stilson scored 5 points, Tyler Butler scored 3 points and Brax Jensen and Keaton McDermott each scored 2 points.
Emery shot the ball well in this game as they made shot 56 percent from the filed including shooting 47 percent behind the three-point line. Koby had 16 rebounds to lead the team and also had 2 blocked shots.
Jorgensen had 3 steals and Jacobson had 8 assists as they both led the Spartan effort.
Emery’s lone game this week is against Manti in Friday night with the game being in Manti.
Spartans defeat San Juan and Grand to lead the region
"Brax Jensen heads down court with the ball for Emery."