Cardinals Fall In District Play

The Cardinals began tournament play Tuesday February 13th at West Side taking on the Pirates.  It had taken West Side until the end of overtime just five days earlier to nab the number two seed from the Cardinals and earn the home court advantage in this opening round.  Early in this game the teams would stay close on the scoreboard.  After a couple of ties West Side gets the last four points of the quarter including a fast break layup at the buzzer to take an early 15-11 lead.  The second quarter would be disastrous for the Cardinals.  Multiple turnovers by the Cardinals combined with some missed shots would extend the Pirate lead.  Hansen would have to make a quick trip to the locker room during a stretch where he was the highest producing Cardinal on the floor.  Even after Hansen's return the Cardinals still struggled to score and ended the first half trailing 33-18.  At this point only three Cardinals had scored with Hansen leading the way with ten.  The third didn't start much better for Soda as the struggles would continue and they would see the Pirate lead grow.  After the lead had grown to 24 it was Docksteader that finally got on the board as the fourth Cardinal to score, quickly followed by Lee with a huge three point shot.  The comeback attempt was on from there.  Docksteader had a huge quarter helping whittle away at the Pirate lead taking it from 24 down to 11 when the quarter ended with the score of 53-42.  The Cardinals had put up an impressive 24 points in the quarter with 16 of them coming in the last three and a half minutes.  Caleb Thompson would hit a pair of threes to start the fourth off for Soda.  That would bring us to the first of many timeouts in the quarter with the score now 55-48.  West Side would come out and take the lead back to nine and it would stay in that range for the next several minutes as the teams would trade baskets.  With the lead and time on their side the Pirates began to take as much time off the shot clock as possible with each possession.  West Side would push the lead to twelve with three minutes left and Soda would call a timeout to regroup.  Soda would come out of the timeout and show some real grit and cut the lead to five with just one minute left in the game.  After a couple of clutch threes by Cooper Thompson the lead was down to two points when Hansen would commit his fifth foul and have to leave the game with just fifteen seconds left.   Soda would be within one point with West Side shooting a foul shot.  With Hansen on the bench Soda was missing one of its best rebounders so when the foul shot came off the rim the Pirates were able to get the offensive rebound and be fouled again.  West Side would make the final two foul shots and narrowly beat the Cardinals 70-67.  Several Cardinals had big plays in the game but unfortunately they couldn't all happen in the same period of play.  A slow second quarter proved detrimental for the Cardinals in this one.

In the next round of the tournament the Cardinals would face Malad in an elimination game.  In the two regular season matchups the Cards would come out with wins but they wouldn't be without their drama.  In Malad Soda would win by twelve, then at home the game would go into overtime with the Cardinals needing extra time to get the eight point victory.  With this in mind Soda would not take the Dragons lightly.  Soda jumped out early and took a 7-2 lead.  The Cards were playing good defense and got out in transitions several times with mixed results.  Malad with some good size of their own would make things difficult for the Cards under the basket but Soda would hold the lead 10-4 midway through the first. Some missed foul shots and a handful of their own turnovers would see the Cardinals let the Dragons back into the game.  With just under a minute to go Malad would make a three and tie the game.  The Cards would answer back before the buzzer with a Docksteader lay-in and take a 17-15 lead.  In the second the feel of the game would change as the defenses would seem to take a break as each team would run the floor looking to score quick.  It was almost like watching a pickup game at a local gym.  The lead would change several times and each team would take a timeout.  Late in the quarter Malad would convert an and one and take a 34-33 lead into the half.  In the third Docksteader and Tingey would each pick up their third fouls and the pace of the game would stay quick.  At the four minute mark Soda would gain a little cushion and push the lead to five and hold it there until the end of the third with the score being 55-50.  The final period things would continue with Soda maintaining about a five to six point lead throughout.  After several timeouts by each team Malad would start to foul to try to get back into the game and would have to hope Soda would miss from the line.  The Cardinals would not miss and make the Dragons pay.  In the final seconds both teams would pull the starters and the clock would run out on Malads season as the Cardinals would win with their biggest lead of the game 72-60.  On the other side of the bracket West Side would take it to Bear Lake setting up a meeting between the Bears and the Cardinals in yet another elimination game. 

The Soda Springs versus Bear Lake elimination game would take place in Bear Lake on Saturday night.  In the previous matchups the games had been very closely contested games with large boisterous crowds.  This game however would see fewer fans in the stands as both teams' female counterparts had qualified for state, sending much of the Cardinal and Bear faithful to Boise.  For those that did stay local you were treated to yet another great battle between two quality squads.  As things kicked off defensive specialist Tingey would get a very quick early foul but would just as quickly get his revenge by drawing a charge call on the next possession.  Both teams would be very active on defense with several tipped passes and multiple loose balls.  Docksteader would start things off for the Cards scoring the first four points for Soda.  At the midway point of the first we would be knotted up at just six points a piece.  The teams would trade a couple of baskets before Soda would take a small lead of four points and Bear Lake would take a timeout with 1:18 left in the first.  The Cardinals would hold the four point lead and the first would end with the score of 14-10.  Docksteader looked good early, scoring eight of Soda's fourteen points.  Starting off the second Soda would have a few unforced turnovers but would continue to hold a small lead.  Cooper Thompson and Tingey would see some foul trouble in the first few minutes of the second and Bear Lake would take advantage of some foul shots and tie the game at eighteen.  Bear Lake would use another timeout at the 4:41 mark as they now held a two point lead.  Soda would go the next few minutes with some empty possessions before Thompson and Hansen would each put in a foul shot and cut the lead to two once again.  Soda would struggle from the floor in the second half of the quarter and as they would go into the halftime break they would trail 24-22.  Just one minute into the third Bear Lake would extend their lead with back to back three point shots forcing the Cardinals to take a timeout.  For the next several minutes the teams would go back and forth with the lead alternating between six and eight points.  Turnovers continued to plague the Cardinals as they would fail to cut into the lead and after another three point shot by the Bears Soda would now trail by twelve. Tingey would pick up his fourth foul with two minutes left in the quarter.  Soda would use another time out at around the 1:30 mark of the third to see if they could clean things up a little and start to work on cutting down the deficit.  Soda would come out with renewed energy, but would fail to convert from the field or the charity stripe, and the quarter would come to a close with the Cardinals trailing 42-30.  Starting the fourth Sodas shooting would look much better but another three for the Bears would keep the lead at around ten.  Just over a minute into the fourth Tingey would foul out.  Soda called a timeout with just over six minutes left in the game and was still trailing by ten.  Soda would get a bucket and a minute later it would be the Bears that called a timeout as they seemed a little out of sorts.  After some back and forth play Cooper Thompson would hit a couple of threes and cut the lead to three.  Hansen, also having a good quarter, continued to attack the rim but would struggle from the line.  Soda would take the next time out at 2:50.  Another three by Thompson would cut the lead to just two points. From there things would not go the Cardinals way.  After a couple of missed shots by Soda and a couple of run outs by Bear Lake the lead would quickly jump back up to eight points before a somewhat controversial call and the game would end with Soda falling 56-47.  With the loss the Cardinal’s season would come to an end.  Though their record and result would not indicate it, Soda had a great season.  Many of their losses were very close and could have gone either way.  They had a great group of seniors that showed some flashes of greatness.  The Cardinals will look to build on this year's success and come back next year to once again contend for a district title.