TAYLORSVILLE -- The Bountiful Braves girl's basketball team somewhat unexpectedly won their first-round state tournament game last Tuesday. Their quarterfinal game was against the defending state champion Orem Tigers and the Braves hung with the Tigers the entire game with exception of the final three minutes of the first half. Those three minutes are what doomed Bountiful in a closer-than-one-would-think 59-42 loss on Thursday.
A consolation for Bountiful is that Orem did eventually make it to the championship game again before losing to Timpview at Salt Lake Community College.
Bountiful never claimed to be the biggest and tallest team in the state this year and that hurt them against Orem game.
Forward Jessica Saliby scored the Tigers' first 10 points of the game en route to an 18-point, 10-rebound performance.
She made seven of her eight shots from the field off numerous put backs of Orem misses.
The Braves also didn't have an answer for 6'5" center Jamie Sager, who scored on various turnarounds and jump hooks in the lane to the tune of 12 points and five blocks on the defensive end.
What kept Bountiful in the game in the first half was the stellar play of guard Katie Pawlowski. She scored 11 of her team-high 13 points in the first half to keep the Braves close going into the final three minutes of the second quarter.
There was a scoreboard malfunction with three minutes left in the second quarter, which took about five minutes to resolve. Once the issue was corrected, the score changed from 24-18 to 22-20 in favor of Orem. Pawlowski then made one of two free throws to get the Braves to within one.
Maybe the break from play hurt the Braves' momentum, but Orem then reeled off an 11-0 run to end the half and they never looked back at 33-21.
"Those last three minutes are what did us in for the entire game," Bountiful coach Kelly Anderson said. "That run was a big turning point because we handled the tempo and made good shots the whole game besides those three minutes."
Bountiful lost the game by 17, so it goes to show that they were only outscored by five points in the second half. If only those last three minutes hadn't happened, then maybe the Braves could have pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the tournament.
Bountiful stayed close in the second half with the play of guard Chelsea Forbes and center Ashlyn Hewlett.
Forbes scored seven of her 10 points in the second period to go along with four rebounds and five assists.
Hewlett tallied eight points, six of them coming in the second half, and seemed the one player down low who was quick and long enough to hang with Saliby and Sager.
Bountiful finished the season with a 9-13 record, which is close to what Anderson expected.
"I though we'd win about 10 games this year," Anderson added. "Our core was three juniors and one sophomore and there were a lot on this team who'd never played varsity before. I'm pleased with how the team played overall."
With the youth, the Braves will be competing for a Region 5 title next year against the likes of Woods Cross, Box Elder, Mountain Crest and Sky View.
Maybe all they'll need to get over that hump and perhaps win region in 2007-2008 is play a full 32 minutes of basketball. The experience some of the key players earned this year will go a long way towards next season's success.
"That happened a lot this year where we would have a bad three- or four-minute lapse which we'd be reeling from the rest of the game," Anderson continued. "Hopefully, our main core can take that experience from this year, learn from it, and be that much more prepared for next season."
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