Each year the Carbon Dinos face a game schedule with some tough 3A teams in the preseason.
Each year they also face playing at least one 4A or 5A team from the Wasatch Front. Sometimes the teams come to Carbon, but often the Dinos must go and play there. People seldom expect 3A teams to beat the larger schools squads, but sometimes the smaller schools do triumph, especially against lower division large programs.
In their next to last preseason game the kids from Carbon took on that challenge. They travelled to Salt Lake and faced the Granger Lancers. But they were not one of the lucky 3A squads that won. They took it on the chin with a 64-47 loss.
Coming into the game the two teams had similar overall records; Carbon was 4-5 and Granger was 3-5. But the Lancers were obviously the better team, at least on this night. One of the things they did very well was shut down the usual scoring sources the Dinos rely on; they closed out Jake Wood, who has been scoring regularly in double figures. They stopped Jeff Anderson from doing his regular thing. They took Matt Jewkes out of his game.
The only player in double figures for Carbon was Jan Jorgensen, who got 11, double his usual average.
The game began with Granger leading out with a 15-10 first quarter lead.
In the second period the Lancers added to the lead by out scoring the Dinos 21-15 and went into the locker room at the West Valley school with an 11 point lead.
The first half was the Lancers Brian Erickson who got many of his 24 points during that time span.
The second half started and that is when the rest of the Lancers started to kick in. In both periods of the half the score was the same; Granger 14, Carbon 11.
Carbon also played Ogden last Friday night, but as of publication time that score was not available.
The Dinos next game will be against American Fork on Jan. 8 in Utah county, their last preseason game before they meet Delta in their first league contest of the season at the Rabbits gym on Jan. 11.
While the Granger game was against a 5A opponent who has a much larger student population (1550), the game against American Fork is a much more matched game even though the Cavemen play in the 4A division. In fact, by all accounts, American Forks school population is only a little over 1000, making it more a 3A size school than a 4A institution.
Dinos lose to Lancers in class warfare
