Cardinals Trending In The Right Direction

The Soda Springs boys basketball team had another busy week last week playing three games.  The Cardinals picked up solid wins against both Grace and Aberdeen before losing to the district’s top team for the second time, the Declo Hornets.

The Cardinals started off taking on Grace in an early week game last Tuesday.  This game was competitive in the early going.  The Cardinals were able to get a slim four point lead in the first as the teams traded blows.  However, nine first quarter points from Thompson and a late five point run for Soda Springs had the Cardinals leading by nine points at the end of the first.  In the second period lots of good ball pressure by the Cardinals forced several Grizzly turnovers.  The good defense by the Cards led to some good looks for Soda Springs.  Senior Chase Jacobson had his best game of the season as he added a pair of three pointers in the second and the Cardinals lead grew to twelve points at the half.  In the third quarter the play from both teams got a little sloppy with neither team able to move the needle any.  By the end of the period the Cardinals lead still stood at twelve.  In the fourth quarter the Cardinals would only make two shots from the field however some incredible foul shooting by Soda Springs not only maintained their lead but actually grew it to a fifteen point victory.  The Cardinals shot an impressive seventeen for twenty from the charity stripe in the game and individually Cooper Thompson went seven for seven from the line.

Next up for the Cardinals was a road trip to Aberdeen.  Coming into the game the Tigers had just three wins on the season and are sitting at the bottom of the district.  Whether it was that lowly record or coming off of some big wins the Cardinals started the game perhaps overlooking the Tigers.  After the first few minutes of a close battle Aberdeen actually pulled away from the Cardinals to finish the first quarter with a seven point lead.  The Tigers opened up the second with a three pointer and the lead jumped to ten.  From there the two teams would play the rest of the quarter to a stalemate and the Cardinals entered the half still trailing by that margin.  In the third the Cardinals finally righted the ship and exploded for eighteen points.  In the same period the Tigers shooting went cold while the Cardinals defense became very active.  As a result the Tigers were held to just a single foul shot in the quarter.  Now leading by seven the Cardinals were now in control of the game.  The Tigers would never get closer than four points down with the Cardinals eventually pulling away to a twelve point victory.

The Cardinals finished the week by traveling to Declo to take on the top ranked Hornets.  In their first meeting this season the Hornets jumped out to an early lead and cruised in the second half to a seventeen point victory.  This time around the Cardinals matched the Hornets aggressive play and by the end of one the Hornets did have the lead but just by four points.  In the second period of play Soda was only able to get points from three different players one of them being McWilliams who scored six of the teams ten total points in the quarter.  Despite the moderate scoring output the Cardinals defense helped hold the Hornets to just one point better at eleven for the quarter and the teams went to the locker room separated by five points.  The third quarter was similar to the second.  The Cardinals were once again able to put up ten points but were also bested once again this time by two.  The quarter scoring was tight but with each one going in favor of the Hornets the lead had slowly grown to seven points to start the fourth.  That lead would fluctuate over the first six and a half minutes of the final period with the Cardinals never being able to get closer than six points.  With just a little over a minute and a half left in the game McWilliams would unfortunately foul out immediately followed by a rare sixth foul when he was hit with a technical foul.  That was followed shortly by another technical foul called on the coaching staff.  The Hornets took advantage of the crucial mistakes made by the Cardinals and doubled the lead to twelve.  With very little time left in the game Soda Springs was unable to make much of a dent in the lead and lost the game by eleven.

   The Cardinals have a pair of very important games coming up this week.  First they host Wendell on Wednesday.  The Trojans are a dangerous team and currently sit just behind the Cardinals in the district standings.  After that Soda Springs will travel to another dangerous team in Malad.  The streaky Dragons can be deadly from behind the arch on any given night.  The Cardinals are more than capable of winning both games but will need to keep their wits about them to stay in the running for the two seed in the upcoming district tournament.

Cardinals 23 12 10 14 59

Grizzlies 14 9 10 11 44

K.Kirby 2, C.Jacobson 14, C.Thompson 17, G.Hansen 3, K.McWilliams 9, D.Stoor 2, P.Ozburn 7, D.Billman 5

Cardinals 7 9 18 12 46

Tigers 14 12 1 7 34

C.Jacobson 2, L.Moldenhauer 3, C.Thompson 5, G.Hansen 19, K.McWilliams 10, P.Ozburn 5, D.Billman 2

Cardinals 7 10 10 16 43

Hornets 11 11 12 20 54

K.Kriby 2, C.Jacobson 2, C.Thompson 12, G.Hansen 13, K.McWilliams 10, P.Ozburn 2, D.Billman 2