Cardinals Fail To Sustain Big First Quarter

The Soda Springs boys basketball team had just one game on the schedule last week, a match up with the West Jefferson Panthers.  This was the fourth meeting between the two teams in the last three years.  In the three previous meetings the home team has come out ahead.  As luck would have it, this year’s match up was at West Jefferson.  This year’s Cardinals team full of promise had hoped to end the losing streak in Terrington and early on it looked as though they would.  In the first quarter of play the Cardinals looked as good as they ever have.  They played fast with great ball movement and accurate shooting.  The Cardinals looked like they were going to run away with the game after they put up twenty first quarter points and opened up a nine point lead.  Unfortunately the Cardinals would not be able to maintain that pace through any other quarter of the game.  As the second quarter got underway the Panthers decided to come at the Cardinals with an increased level of physicality.  This strategy favored the Panthers and they began to cut into the Cardinal lead.  Another result of the ratcheted up play was several Cardinals began picking up fouls.  West Jefferson was able to get within three points of the Cardinals but five late points pushed the lead back to eight going into the halftime break.  The lead continued to dwindle in the third quarter as the Cardinals struggled to score while continuing to rack up fouls.  With the momentum now completely in their favor the Panthers outscored the Cardinals by seven points in the third and the Soda Springs lead now stood at just a single point.  The Panthers were able to earn their first lead of the game three minutes into the fourth quarter.  The Cardinals shooting struggles continued and so did their foul troubles.  Of the five starters three would end with four fouls each with one fouling out.  Those same starters that had put up twenty first quarter points were only able to account for nine second half points with only two of those points coming in the fourth.  In the end the Cardinals were unable to keep up their first quarter success and for the third year in a row they fell to the Panthers on the road.  The Cardinals and their fans would not be unjustified in questioning the way the game was called but at the same time Soda Springs did have their opportunities to score.  The Cardinals missed several open shots that included three pointers and layups.  They also went flat at the foul line.  After shooting over seventy percent in the first quarter from the line they only managed to shoot just over forty percent in the second half.  

Despite the tough loss this game will not define the Cardinals season.  They had a chance to get back into the win column on Monday night in a home game against Bear Lake that had not yet taken place at the time of the writing of this article.  I suspect that they were successful in winning that game but we will have a full rundown of how it turned out in next week’s edition. 

Cardinals 20 9 9 6 44

Panthers 11 10 16 13 50

L. Mellor 3, G. Hansen 5, P. Ozburn 3, K. McWilliams 17, C. Thompson 12, K. Harrison 1, M. Browning 2, L. Martinsen 3