| Emery’s Alexis Swasey crosses over to bring the ball toward the basket as Carbon’s Tabby Cummins tries to stop her during Tuesday nights game. |
There are some definite truths in life.
Water is wet, rock is hard and the sky is blue when there are no clouds and the sun is up.
Oh, one more. A team might be able to contain Morgan Warburton for part of a game, but not for all of it.
That was a hard earned truth for the Emery Lady Spartans to learn on Tuesday night as Carbon came back from a six point halftime deficit and beat them in the Spartan Center 49-45.
This very well could have been the toughest game Carbon will have before they go to the state tournament this year. Emery came into the game only twice defeated in 11 games, with one of those victories a surprising win over Uintah in Vernal, the only team to have kept Carbon from being undefeated so far this year.
The first quarter of the game was fairly even, until Emery broke out a little and went up 12-9 at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter was similar, as Emery pushed the envelope a little more and at the half led 27-21.
It was an unusual half time for Carbon, which has generally dominated it’s opponents in the first half this year. Warburton, while playing well, was dogged by Emery’s defense and had not put in the points she normally does in a half.
“Morgan wasn’t feeling well last night, “said Coach Bruce Bean in a phone interview on Wednesday afternoon. “She has had a cold, but she came through.”
Bean said that in that first half Emery kept double teaming Warburton and that gave Jamie King a chance to do some good scoring, despite the fact she had to sit down a lot due to foul trouble.
“I think in that first half we lost focus a little,” stated Bean.
But Bean must have given all the girls some glasses to better see what was going on in the second half, because even though it took some time, they came back big time.
When the third period began, it was time for pressure and Carbon applied it. The literally shut down Emery’s offense only allowing them 8 points in the quarter. However, Carbon was not prolific either only narrowing the Lady Spartan’s lead by one with 9 points themselves.
They knew they could never win like that; there weren’t enough quarters in the game to allow that kind of progression.
Again in the fourth period Carbon applied their defense up and down the court. In this quarter their defense also turned into offensive bursts as well, particularly for Warburton. Emery could no longer stop her or for that matter the rest of the team either. The scrambling defense stopped the Lady Spartans from scoring time after time, holding them to only 10 points for the period. Carbon, on the other hand, seemed to have their way most of the time they approached the basket, putting through 19.
Warburton led all scorers with 22 points while King put in 11 for the Lady Dinos. Other scorers included Maquette Potts with 4, Tabby Cummings had 2, Halee Rasmussen scored 1, Meesha Rasmussen put in 2, Amie Stewart added 2 and Danielle Martino scored 5.
But there is always more to a game than scoring. The teams defense was great, particularly at crunch time.
The off the bench players also added greatly to the energy. Danielle Martino, particularly, rose up and played great defense.
Another outstanding statistic was the individual rebounding. Most people think of Warburton as a great scorer, but she also had 12 rebounds to go along with the points. Matching her grab for grab was Potts who also had 12.
Emery was led in scoring by Camille Fehlberg with 16.
Carbon now has a week to rest before their home Region 8 opener against Delta on Jan. 18, probably the only other team in the region that could give the Lady Dinos trouble.
Nothing like facing the toughest foes to begin with.