GARLAND—As of last weekend, the demons that have haunted the Hawks up north for years have been exorcised and buried in the frozen December soil.
The North Sanpete boys’ basketball team came away as winners from the Bear River Classic in Garland with a 3-0 run through the field weekend, preserving their undefeated record at 5-0 as they vanquished Ben Lomond, 58-56, Altamont, 48-37, and Utah Military Academy-Camp Williams, 73-22, in consecutive days. In Coach Bill Pollock’s view, they’ve still not yet arrived.
“We are still working on us,” Pollock said. “I’ve been happy with the kids’ willingness to stay engaged with what we want them to do. We’ve kept it simple and focused on the fundamentals of what we want to be good at. We had a good week, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
The Hawks struggled back and forth with Ben Lomond, a former 4A squad jumping down to 3A for the new season. The Scots held the halftime lead, 24-20, after a big second quarter. After halftime, however, it was all North Sanpete for the next eight minutes as they dropped 27 points in the third quarter and held on in the fourth for the win.
North Sanpete’s 27-point quarter was the highest-scoring quarter for the Hawks since last January and is only the second time in four seasons they have hit or surpassed that mark.
Seniors Morgan and Landon Bowles led the Hawks in scoring with 15 and 13 points, respectively. Senior Ty Morley chipped in 10 points.
Against Altamont, North Sanpete once again faced a halftime deficit in a low-scoring affair, 24-21, but they would shut down the Longhorns’ offense in the second half, allowing only 13 more points while running away on the other end for the win.
Morley was locked in the defensive struggle as he led all scorers with 20 points. Landon Bowles put in 13 points.
After what was already a successful showing at the invite, North Sanpete put an exclamation point on their statement by blowing the doors off of UMA-Camp Williams in a game that saw 15 different players score for North Sanpete. Morgan Bowles and junior Ty Allan led with 10 points apiece, and the Hawks shot a collective 63 percent from the field, making 32 field goals.
North Sanpete’s 5-0 start is the best start since 2015. The Hawks will be at home to host Carbon on Wednesday. They’ll then host South Sevier on Friday and will travel to Millard on Saturday.
