| East Carbon’s Chelsey Timothy guards Tabiona’s Tracina Casper in Tuesday nights game just before Timothy suffered a badly sprained ankle which took her out of the game and may affect her immediate future with the team. |
On Tuesday night the East Carbon girls basketball team lost to Tabiona 60-25, but that may not have been the biggest loss of the night.
Chelsey Timothy, who is one of the starters and needed on this squad, fell in a rush for the ball at the 5:12 mark of the second quarter and was never able to return to the floor with what initially appeared to be a broken ankle.
From then on it was definite downhill for the ECH girls. At the point of Timothy’s injury, Tabiona had just gone on a run and was leading the Lady Vikes 25-16, but they were still in the game, despite being behind. After the injury they were only able to score another two points before the end of the half, and only seven more in the entire game.
Fears in the gym at the time were that Timothy’s basketball season was over, but on Wednesday East Carbon Principal Carol Wells said that the tough little player came back to school limping but with no crutches.
Luckily for East Carbon, and her, it appears to be just a bad sprain. But that painful injury will almost certainly interfere with her playing in the rest of the preseason and may affect her into the season as well.
After ECH lost Timothy, the Lady Tigers, seemed to be just that. It was like they had become their namesakes, smelling the blood of one kill, they went after the ECH girls like, well, Tigers. Time and time again they took the ball away from the Lady Vikes, particularly through the rest of the second quarter and well into the third.
The East Carbon girls did recover a little in the fourth quarter, at least being able to get the ball down by the basket to take some shots, but it was too little too late. Tabiona had out distanced them so far there was no hope of coming back.
The per quarter scores told the tale.
In the first quarter East Carbon fell behind 12-4, but came back toward the end of the period to tie it up 12 all. A couple of miscues, however, led to Tabiona getting the ball and able to put in three at the end of the quarter making the score 16-13.
The second quarter began relatively even but then Tabiona pulled away and after Timothy’s injury it got much worse for the East Carbon girls with the halftime score on the board showing a 41-18 lead for the school girls from Duchesne County.
In the third quarter it didn’t improve as the Lady Vikes were only able to score two points on a shot by Donna Turner late in the period. But the problem just wasn’t offense. Time and time again the Lady Tigers were able to put the ball in the basket off of steals and open shots. The quarter mercifully ended with the kids from up north leading 54-20.
In the fourth quarter East Carbon finally seemed to adjust and played much better on defense, even though the offense was still weaker than it should have been . They held the Lady Tigers to just six points in the final period, while scoring five themselves. This was a large improvement over the second and third quarters.
The Lady Tigers were led in scoring by Amber Pippy with 26 points, many of them on fast breaks.
East Carbon’s Joyce Clark scored six to pace the Lady Vikings scoring. Five other players scored four points each.
The team faced Green River in a game after press time on Wednesday evening and then will go on to play another home game against Region 18 foe next Tuesday night in the Viking gym.