Dinos dominate weekend games

By Sierra Trujillo

With five seconds remaining in the final period of play, the Carbon High School gym was eerily silent. Weird, for a tied game between the boys’ basketball teams of Carbon and North Sanpete High School, but as junior Gage Daugherty stepped up to the free throw line for the Dinos, no one wanted to be the one to distract him. You could almost hear the fans in the crowd take a deep breath with him. He bent, shot and the ball bounced off the rim. He missed. The sighs of the crowd fell heavily throughout the gym, with one more chance to take a mere one-point lead. Again, accompanied by deep breaths by both players and fans, Daughtery took his stance, bent his knees and shot the ball… and in the basket went.
The Hawks of North Sanpete raced down the court as time ticked down and got one shot off, which hit the rim and bounced back as the buzzer sounded. The Dinos won the game 54-53.
“I’m extremely excited, my blood pressure’s still got to come down,” said head coach Jeff Cisneros. “I told our kids that North Sanpete was going to come after us after us getting a win up there… they’re a good basketball team and I thought they gave us their best tonight and I thought we gave them our best, and fortunately for us we were one point better.”
The Dinos had battled with the Hawks throughout the night, trailing by eight points halfway through the second period. Carbon pulled within four by halftime, and surged after the break, taking a six-point lead going into the final period. North Sanpete slowing crept up and eventually took a two-point lead with just over a minute to play. Two free throws by senior Brad Williams tied the game for the Dinos and Daugherty sank the game-winning free throw with five seconds left.
The fans rushed the court as the buzzer rang out, celebrating the Dinos’ third Region 12 win of the season.
Yes, you read that right, their third Region 12 win of the season. But for a team that has been on the losing side of games like these, and games in general, throughout the past few years, a winning season is something to be proud of.
Daugherty has stepped up to the plate in his junior year, especially since the team lost senior captain Cole Fossat to injury. Prior to Friday’s game-winning free throw shot, Daugherty put up the best performance of his high school career on Wednesday against Union High School, totaling 33 points in the game with eight three-pointers and seven free throw shots.
“I’m glad Gage was on tonight (Wednesday), he had a heck of a game, he had a career night. It helped us out big time,” said Cisneros. “He wants the basketball right now. He’s been our catalyst since Cole went out. He’s really carrying our team right now and making us click, and we need him on the floor. He wants to be on the floor.”
The Dinos also won that game, a non-region match set-up to keep the boys playing even during a bye-week in Region. Daugherty put up more than half of the team’s total 63 points of the game, compared to Union’s 57.
“I don’t like the bye weeks, I don’t like not having a game,” said Cisneros. “You hope and pray that nobody gets hurt when you schedule a game like this, but I think it’s good for us to play. We can’t match that intensity in practice. For us to have a game like that just makes us that much better.”
Carbon, now 12-8 overall and 3-2 in Region 12 play, will play its next game at home on Wednesday against Richfield High School at 7 p.m. In the two teams’ previous match-up this season, Richfield took the 58-46 win, so the Dinos are sure to be looking to even the field.