| East Carbon’s Kyle Leonard goes up for two of his 25 points against Tintic on Friday night. |
The East Carbon Vikings played the Tintic Miners in their Region 18 home opener on Friday night. That wasn’t supposed to be the home opener but it was.
That’s because on Wednesday they were supposed to play Wasatch Academy at home for their opening game of league play, but the Tigers cancelled because of the bad weather.
Nonetheless the Vikings would have had to face the Miners and when they did they lost the game 82-60.
But this team, while not having won a game this year so far, will beat some people, probably at the most unexpected time.
While the Vikings were behind the entire game, much of the time, if one couldn’t have seen the scoreboard it would have seemed like the game must be close. East Carbon’s hustle and work on defense was good, while their offense needs some touch ups.
In the first quarter both teams were hot. Baskets were filled up on both ends of the court as Tintic put through 24 points with East Carbon providing another 20.
A hundred point game in a 1A game? It wasn’t hard to imagine.
But in the second period things moved back to a more normal scoring scenario, with East Carbon staying right on the heels of the kids from Eureka. At the half the score was 41-36.
It was in the third quarter when Tintic began to pull away, despite the hard work of the Viking players. Three pointers seem to fall everywhere for the Miners as they bashed East Carbon for 19 points while holding the Vikings to only 13.
But still the scores weren’t that far apart, and with the ability of Kyle Leonard to score (25 for the game) it seemed the Vikings still had a good chance.
Problem was that Tintic’s Ryle Underwood liked it behind that three point line way too much. While East Carbon put the defense on inside, Underwood took it apart by throwing in the long bombs time and time again, getting five total for the game.
However, during the fourth quarter Underwood was lucky to get the ball close enough to the basket to put it through as East Carbon players put full court pressure on stealing the ball time and time again.
Unfortunately, the conversion rate on the steals was not as good as it could have been and Tintic got smart a few times throwing the ball over the press to a baseline player who got an easy two each time.
Tintic ended up scoring 22 points in the period while keeping East Carbon at bay with only 11.
East Carbon’s scoring wasn’t a one man show on this night however. Along with Leonard in double figures was Larry Leyba with 21 points. Most importantly Leyba also set a school record by going 8 for 8 from the foul line, breaking the year old mark set by Leonard last season.
Tintic was paced by Underwood who had 31 points.
The East Carbon boys now take a detour from their Region 13 schedule and travel to Navajo Mountain for a non-region game on Wednesday. Friday night they face Dugway at home at 7 p.m.