Lady Templars control most

of the game to beat

Lady Hawk rivals, 54-34

By Rhett Wilkinson

Staff writer

1-27-2021

MT. PLEASANT—After leading for most of the first quarter, the North Sanpete girls’ basketball team fell to Manti 54-34.

According to North Sanpete Coach Taylor Christensen, towards the end of the game, the Lady Hawks (1-11, 1-6 in Region 14) “got a little bit lazy and a little bit tired.”

“We started fouling a little bit more,” Christensen said.

Before that, North Sanpete was “tough” and “gritty” on defense against the Lady Templars (9-5, 6-1), Christensen said.

“Until the end, I thought we played really well and played without fouling,” Christensen said. “I thought we did a good job sliding our feet and making them make shots over us.”

Tylee Henrie made a basket and-1 to make it 44-31 with still 5:56 to go in the game. But Manti went on a 10-3 run to conclude the contest. Breana Barson made two buckets in the post around 45 seconds apart to open up a 53-33 lead with two minutes to go in the game.

Christensen thought all of her players were standouts defensively. She also said that point guard Kortley Cook is “always going to stand out.”

“She just handles the ball really well for us, which is nice,” Christensen said. “It’s good to have someone who can handle the ball and go get a basket whenever we basically need it. So that’s nice.”

When Eryn Briggs hit a 3-pointer with 2:55 left in the third quarter to make it 37-23, it gave the Lady Hawks their first points of the quarter. The Lady Hawks trailed 31-20 at halftime.

“I thought we played really well,” Christensen said. “We just missed some easy layups and some free throws and we would have been in the game. But what do you do? We’re young, so it’s kind of expected, but we’ve got to get better at those two things.”