| Eric Buchmiller floats up a shot in the Dinos overtime loss. |
After several games where the Dinos struggled to stay in the game, Wednesday night’s game was one where no one left their seats until the fat lady sang. In the end, the Dinos took a heart breaking 59-58 loss in overtime to the Union Cougars.
The Cougars controlled most of the first half of play. They began with a full court press and slowed the tempo down. Their size made it difficult for the Dinos to score, but Carbon did not let the game get too far away. At the break they were down by seven.
In the second quarter they made several small runs at the Cougars, but each time Union battled back and moved the lead up. At the half the Dinos found themselves down by eight.
A recharged Dinos squad took the court in the third ready to climb back in the game. They began to contol the tempo of the game and climbed within three several times, only to have Union hit some threes and widen the lead back up. By the end of the third, the lead had only shrunk back to seven.
It was the fourth quarter where the Dinos finally bore down and played some of their toughest ball yet. Good defense and some crucial shots pulled them back into the game. This time Union was not able to give themselves the breathing room to finish off the Dinos.
Things looked bad when a turnover let Union take a three point lead with seconds on the clock. Carbon called back to back time outs to put together an inbound play. The Cougars knocked the ball out of bounds with three seconds on the clock. Carbon inbounded to Ryan Rasmussen who turned and heaved up a three point shot that fell in for the tie.
In over time it was free throws that could have helped the Dinos seal up the game, but it wasn’t to be. Union scored five to eek out the one point win over the Dinos.
Joey Keller led the Dinos with 13 points. Tysen Stevens scored 12 and Eric Buchmiller put in eight to lead the Dino offense.
“We put ourselves in a position to win and it just wasn’t meant to be tonight,” summed up Bianco on the loss. “I will take a game like this any night over the type of games we’ve played last week. The kids showed a lot of great effort tonight and I was pleased with the effort. We played some good defense and that gave us a chance to get back in the game.”
The Dinos head to Park City for a Friday game. The outcome of that match was not available at press time.
The Dinos will return to action on Jan. 3rd at home against Duchesne at 7 p.m. in the Carbon High gym. Region play will start on Jan. 9 in Delta.