Grace Continues In District Tournament

The snow had started to fall in Idaho Falls as the Grizzlies and Butte County reached Thunder Ridge for this ever important tournament game.  Butte had won both regular season matchups but Wednesday night's game would be the most important game so far this year for these two teams.  The winner would advance to the championship game while the loser would have their first loss of the tournament and have to play Challis in a loser out game on Monday night.  Butte would come out and make the first two baskets one at the rim and one deep three from outside.  It looked like they would pick up right where they left off when they hit ten threes in the previous game.  A quick timeout and the Grizzlies would regroup.  Grace would score the next six points and temporarily take the lead.  From there the scoring would go back and forth and the quarter would close with the Grizz trailing 11-10.  The second would start out sloppy.  The full court pressure from Butte would frustrate the Grizzlies throughout the night.  Several unforced errors as well as poor outside shooting would find the Grizzlies down 17-14 when the next timeout would be called.  Butte would go on a small 5-2 run from there and Grace would be unable to take advantage of some miscues by the Pirates.  Lloyd would pick up his third foul before the half and the Grizz would go into the half down 23-18.  Starting off the third Grace would go on a small 4-0 run but Butte would answer right back.  Butte would then use their first timeout.  After that timeout the Pirates would go on another 5-0 run and Grace would have to use another timeout as they would now be trailing by ten.  In a game like this ten points looked like a mountain to climb.  The temperature outside would warm up and the snow would turn to rain and so would the Grizzly shooting as the boys started to rain some threes to get back into this one.  J. Clegg would make a huge 3 from the corner while a foul was committed under the basket after the shot giving the ball right back to Grace where J. Clegg would hit another three, basically giving Grace a six point possession.  The third quarter would close with Grace still trailing but now within reach at 38-34.  Starting the fourth Grace would get the first basket and the score would get stuck at 38-36 for several minutes.  Butte would call a timeout and come out and extend their lead to 42-38 halfway through the fourth.  After a big three by Jorgensen, Butte would call another time out with the score now 44-41. Butte would try to eat up some clock but Grace would continue to fight and with around 30 seconds left we would have a tie game after another big three by Jorgensen.  Each team would have an opportunity to put this one away in regulation but would fail and we would head to overtime tied at 44.   In overtime Butte would score first on a pair of foul shots.  Grace would answer back with another three by Jorgensen and the Grizzlies would have their first lead since the first quarter.  Butte would then head to the charity stripe again and go one out of two and we would be tied again.  A pair of threes from each team and trading turnovers would see the first overtime end tied at 50.  In the second overtime Butte would grab the first lead going one for two again at the line and from there the scoring would go back and forth. Lloyd would hit a three and Grace would take a two point advantage but Butte would answer back and we would once again be tied as the clock ran out at 57.  So here we would go to a third overtime.  Butte would gain a four point advantage and hold it for a couple of minutes before Jorgensen would hit a three cutting the lead to one.  Butte would get a two point advantage before fouling Lloyd and sending him to the line.  He would go one for two and Butte would grab the rebound, as the Grizz tried to trap the ball handler there was a collision with J. Clegg and a controversial blocking call was made that could have gone either way.  Butte would go to the line and make one out of two gaining a 65-63 advantage.  Grace would have the ball in the closing seconds but the last second desperation shot would miss.  It would be a Pirate dagger to the heart of the Grizzlies rather than Cupid's arrow on Valentines Day as the Grizzlies fall 65-63 in this game.  Grace would now face Challis in the loser out game on Monday February 19 once again at Thunder Ridge. Scoring for the Grizzlies: J. Clegg 21, R. Jorgensen 18, K. Clegg 16, E. Lloyd 4, B. Kimball 2, C. Smith 2

On Monday night the Grizzlies would be in an elimination game as they faced the Challis Vikings.  The Grizzlies had already defeated the Vikings once in the district tournament just one week prior.  This ever important game would once again take place on the neutral court at Thunder Ridge High School.  In the previous meeting Grace had little trouble dispatching the Vikings and things wouldn't change much in this one.  In the first quarter the Grizzly full court press frustrated the Vikings as they would struggle to get the ball past half court.  Grace would be in complete control and finish the quarter with a commanding 19-0 lead.  As the second got going it wouldn't take the Vikings long to finally get something on the scoreboard.  They would hit a three just seconds into the period.  The Grizzlies may have become a little overconfident as they began to take some risks by trying to make steals and would overrun plays.  Challis took advantage of the missteps and partway through the quarter had an 11-10 scoring lead over the Grizz.  Grace would turn things back on and push their overall lead as they would go into the break up 36-11.  Out of the half the Grizzlies would once again get a little lax with their play.  That combined with a wide variety of substitution lineups would see the Vikings outscore the Grizzlies 16-15 in the quarter.  Even with the lull in play the Grizzlies maintained an overwhelming lead at 51-27.  In the fourth quarter Grace would step things back up and continue to build on the lead.  With a little more than half the quarter left Coach Lloyd would go to his JV players.  Challis would go back to their starters to try to take advantage but to no avail as the younger Grizzlies were up to the challenge and maintained the lead.  Things would finish with a wide margin as Grace would coast in this one 72-37.  With the victory Grace will now have to face Butte County for the fourth time this season.  The Grizzlies have yet to beat the Pirates this year but every game has been very close and hard fought.  That game will take place February 21 at 5:30 p.m. once again at Thunder Ridge.  Several Grizzlies were able to get on the board in this Challis game. Scoring for Grace: K. Clegg 12, J. Clegg 10, E. Lloyd 10, B. Sorenson 9, R. Jorgensen 7, B. Kimball 6, C. Reeves 4, C. Smith 4, D. Hill 3, J. Smith 3, G. Draper 2, T. Mathews 2.