The final two region basketball games for the Lady Spartans were way too easy as they breezed to victory against the San Juan Broncos and the Grand Red Devils last week. Emery defeated San Juan 70-42 after having led at the intermission 40-7 and then defeated Grand 76-19 after leading at that intermission 55-15. Thirteen different Spartans scored in those games as everyone that dressed got to play some.
This week starts the third part of the season, the post-season, the playoffs or state, whatever one wishes to call it. Emery, like every other 2-A team that has qualified to continue playing, will travel to Orem High this Friday for the first round of the state tournament. The Lady Spartans will play Friday night at around 6:30 p.m., no earlier but could be later since this is the seventh game of the day, against the fourth-seeded team from region 14 Waterford, a team with a 6-12 season record.
Emery finished the season with a 19-1 record with that lone loss coming in the third game of the season against North Summit. North Summit finished the season with a 20-1 record and these two teams should be the favorite to play for the title next week. North Sevier finished second in region 15 followed by San Juan, Gunnison, Manti and Grand. North Summit finished the season ranked number one followed by Emery and then North Sevier. Scoring for Emery against San Juan were Lainee Jensen with 20 points,
Megan Jensen with 11 and Kacelyn Toomer with 10. Kinlee Toomer and Erin Hurst each scored 8 points and Morgan Hurdsman scored 6 points. Hailey Jo Allred scored 3 and Adri Childs and Kira Saling each scored 2 points to close out the scoring. Lainee, in addition to leading the team in scoring, also had 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals. Megan and Kacelyn each had 9 rebounds and Kinlee had 9 assists and 5 steals.
Against Grand, Lainee and Kinlee each scored 13 points with Megan scoring 11 points and Kacelyn scoring 10 points. Bailey Huggard scored 7 points with Ambree Bennett scoring 6 points followed by Taijah Price scoring 5 points. Adri scored 4 points followed by Morgan with 3 points and Erin and Tayden Nielson with 2 points each.
After having lost their first region game on Wednesday night at San Juan by the score of 77-69, the Emery Spartans definitely needed to win their final game of the regular season in Moab against Grand High to avoid falling from the first seed for the upcoming 2-A Utah State basketball tournament to possibly a third seed. And with the need the Spartans came through and got the win and avoided a three-way tie for first place in the region. Emery won the game by the score of 80-68.
Emery led 17-15 after the first quarter and then increased the lead to 38-30 at the half. Emery was not about to let up and increased their lead to 11 points after three quarters to 55-44. With the win Emery receives the region’s first seed in the state tournament and will play this Saturday night at Orem High School in a game that will start as early as 6:30 p.m., depending on the outcomes of the previous six games that day. Emery will face the fourth place team from region 14 which is Rockwell.
Against San Juan, Emery fell behind 20-15 after the first quarter and never recovered enough to grab the lead back. Emery trailed 39-32 at the half and 51-47 after three quarters before losing the final period 26-22 and the game by eight points.
Koby Butler led the team in this game with 17 points and 13 rebounds. Bowdie Jacobson scored 16 points and had 4 assists and 4 steals. Kyson Stilson added 13 points and Easton Gordon scored 10 points and also had 8 rebounds. Kolton Butler scored 8 points and also grabbed 15 rebounds. Zachary Jorgensen scored 7 points and also had 4 assists.
At Grand High, Bowdie Jacobson might have had his best game of the season as he scored 24 points and dished out 7 assists. Koby Butler continued being who he is as he scored 21 points and finished with 16 rebounds. Kolton Butler scored 13 points and had 11 rebounds. The game was intense since both teams knew exactly what was on the line in a very physical ball game.
Emery finished the season with a 9-1 region record and an overall record of 19-2 and a number one ranking by the Salt Lake newspapers. Finishing ranked second was South Sevier followed by Waterford, Grand and North Summit.
Individually, Koby Butler led 2-A with a scoring average of 18.4 points per game and also led 2-A with a rebounding average of 12.3 rebounds per game. This average actually led the whole state no matter the classification.
Bowdie Jacobsen averaged 6.0 assists per game which led the 2-A ranks and was second throughout the entire state.
Zachary Jorgensen was third in the 2-A ranks with 2.3 three-pointers per game while Easton Gordon finished fifth in 2-A with a 2.2 steals per game average. Kolton Butler was fourth in 2-A in rebounding with a 7.8 average.
Emery basketball teams win region head to state Fri./Sat.
"Koby Butler fights for a rebound."