East Carbon High School athletic teams have not had a good record when it comes to coin tosses in deciding seedings for state playoffs. In fact until Friday, they were about 0-10 in the last few years on the desirable outcome of such decisions.
But that all ended Friday when a coin toss made the Lady Vikings the second seed going into the state tournament in Cedar City this week, as compared with having a playoff game on Monday in which they would have had to possibly face a tough team from Region 15 to get to there. Instead, and for a change, the Dugway Lady Mustangs were on the short end of the toss and they are the ones who had to face the Monday music. Both teams were tied for the second spot in Region 18 with identical 9-3 records.
After the coin toss on Friday morning, Lady Viking coach Ryan Hepworth ran up and down the halls yelling, “We got it. We got it.”
It capped off a week of ups and downs, but mostly ups.
As reported in the Sun Advocate last Thursday the team was beaten pretty convincingly by West Desert on Tuesday night 51-24 which dropped them into a tie with Dugway.
But they resumed the winning ways on Thursday night zapping Wasatch Academy in Mount Pleasant 57-43. Unfortunately Dugway faced a very weak Meridian team that same night and beat them 50-22 which lead to Friday mornings coin toss.
But the out come of the whole thing was good for the Lady Vikings and the victory on Thursday night over the Tigers helped the East Carbon team determine their own destiny. For once they were able to do that. Had they lost to Wasatch Academy things would have been much different.
The game began as a close one with East Carbon coming out with a small one point lead, 10-9 at the end of the first period. However this only happened because Elizabeth Dansie was able to put in two three pointers to spark the team after they had missed several layups.
The second period was much better for the Lady Vikings as they were able to double up on the Lady Tigers 16-8. A lot of this was due to some impressive rebounding by Alaena Preston and Chelsey Timothy who not only sparked runs but also put impressive shots through the baskets on their end of the floor. In addition the Lady Vikings trapping defense was a key to the quarters lopsided score.
The third period was closer as the Lady Tigers came out working hard. They still lost the quarter, but only by two 17-15.
The tide turned in favor of Wasatch Academy in the fourth period, but not enough for them to win the game. Led by Suzy McCrory , who had 23 points in the game, the Lady Tigers managed to inch out the East Carbon girls 16-14 in the period. McCrory had five three pointers in the game, with two of them coming in the fourth quarter.
East Carbon was led in scoring by Preston who had 19 points and Timothy who garnered 15.
With the end of the regular season, the girls from the Sunnyside school must now wear some real game faces for their upcoming challenge. Their first game at state is at 4:10 p.m. on Wednesday at Canyon View High School in north Cedar City. They will face the winner of the Wayne/ Region 16 #6 team. Region 15, where Wayne plays is probably the strongest 1A division in the state with three of the top five ranked teams residing there. Wayne is a very good team and will probably emerge from that cross over game as the Lady Vikings opponent in their first state game in a long time.
Region 18 has been considered by many experts one of the weakest divisions in 1A girls ball this year.
Just maybe the Lady Vikes can prove those experts wrong and come away with a great showing for Region 18 at state.
East Carbon girls pass go; proceed directly to state
