Spartans shut down Cougars at home
The Exira-EHK boys varsity basketball team won their fourth game in a row Friday night at home against the CAM Cougars, 62-51.
“Anytime you get a win, it’s good, especially a conference win,” said Spartans Head Coach Doug Newton. “We just keep plugging along, trying to do what we can do, holding up our end of the bargain and see what we can do next time we face some of the other top foes in the conference.”
The Spartans opened the game on a 4-0 run before the Cougars got their first basket. Junior Cash Emgarten threw up a shot from 3-point range, putting his team up by five. Before long, Emgarten made a layup, widening the Spartans lead by nine points, forcing Cougars head coach Ian Hunt to call a timeout with three minutes remaining in the first quarter.
The timeout didn’t affect the Spartans, as they took a 21-8 lead into the second quarter. The second quarter was a back-and-forth affair with both team matching each other point-for-point. The Cougars started to make some noise when they cut the Spartans lead to 10 points, forcing Newton to call a timeout.
Senior Derrek Kommes got the crowd on its feet scoring a clutch layup, giving the Spartans a 10-point lead heading into the locker room.
“We just need to slow down, get good shots and get to the hole as best we can,” Kommes said. “We’ve just got to keep pushing for getting their big players out, so that we can have an easier finish.”
Senior Cougar Sam Foreman opened the scoring in the third quarter, cutting the Spartans lead to eight. A few minutes passed when Kommes was fouled, sending him to the line where he made both free throws. The Cougars got going a little trailing by five points when Newton called another timeout.
When play resumed, Senior Easton Nelson was fouled on a made shot, where he hit the extra point. Hunt then called a timeout.
Both teams were continuing to score, keeping it close, but with the third quarter drawing to a close, Junior Quintinn White lit up the crowd when he threw up a buzzer beater that gave the Spartans a 14-point lead entering the final quarter.
The Cougars were trying to make one more run at the Spartans when they cut their lead to nine points with less than six minutes to go in regulation. Hunt pulled his team together for a brief word, but in the end, the Spartans won the game and celebrated the victory.
The road doesn’t get any easier for the Spartans with their next opponent coming in Monday night at 7:30 p.m. in the 11-1 West Harrison Hawkeyes. The Hawkeyes are led by Seniors Mason King with 195 points and Sage Evans with 178 rebounds and 66 assists. The Spartans will look for redemption after losing 71-44 to the Hawkeyes Jan. 10.
“We just want to come out and play some basketball and show that we can play with them,” Newton said. “In order to do that, we’re going to have to rebound with them. That’s something we haven’t done a good job of here in the past three or four times we’ve played them. We just got to be ready to go from the start and match their intensity early and let them know we plan on being around for 32 minutes."