North Sanpete girls lose two games and tie-break coin toss
2-13-08

The North Sanpete girls basketball team had a tough finish to the regular season, losing the last two games and losing the coin toss with Delta to break the tie for the third and fourth place seed in the playoffs.
The Lady Hawks lost at home to the first place Emery Spartans 64-42 and then traveled to Delta, losing a heartbreaker in overtime to the Rabbits 52-48.
Against Emery, Nichole Gordon, who is still recovering from a serious ankle sprain, scored 16 points, and Erika May added 12, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Spartans’ ShiAnne Allred who had a game-high 17 points and was joined in double digits by two other Emery players.
The game was the final home game for the seniors, and three North Sanpete players were honored: Erika May, Tori Cox and Sylvia Bedford.
Emery showed why they haven’t lost in Region 8 by coming out and employing a 2-2-1 full-court press, and pushing the ball every chance they had. Even so, the Spartans only held an 11-8 lead as the first quarter ended.
Emery, with significant runs at the beginning of every quarter, went on a small six-point jaunt to start the second quarter and a more significant 11 straight points to begin the second half. Those two stretches put the Lady Hawks into a huge hole. By the time the fourth quarter started, the game was all over but the time on the clock.
In Delta, the game was tight from the get-go, and at the end of the first half the Rabbits held an 18-17 lead. Erika May, the Hawks’ lead scorer and rebounder, had an 18-point outing for her team, while Bedford added 12 and Gordon 10. But it wasn’t enough to put North Sanpete over the top, and the game ended in a tie at the end of regulation.
The Rabbits then outran the Hawks in the extra period by an 8-4 margin.
A coin toss was held directly after the game, since the two teams tied in region play. Once more, it was Delta that came out on top. The Rabbits will go to the state playoffs as a third seed, while North Sanpete will take the fourth spot.
The Lady Hawks’ first opponents will be the Canyon View Falcons, the fourth-ranked team in the state. The girls will travel to Cedar City to face the 16-4 Falcons on Friday evening.