Beky Beaton, reporter from the Daily Herald (Provo, Utah) accompanying the Lone Peak Knights at the Arizona Basketball Challenge
12/26/08
Day 1
Lone Peak’s players and coaches have to get up around 5 a.m. to begin the trip to Arizona. They meet at the school at 5:45, but the bus they’re taking to the airport is late and doesn’t arrive for another 45 minutes.
They get to the airport and make it through security just in time to board, but the airport is behind schedule because of a big overnight storm, so they sit on the runway for an hour before they are able to take off.
The team reaches Phoenix about noon. When they get to the hotel to check in, the requested rollaway beds are not in their rooms, so booster parents Robert and Joy Rios work with the hotel staff to take care of that while the boys go get something to eat. A couple of them have queasy stomachs, so the Rioses make a run to Albertsons for Pepto, crackers and soda, which is delivered to the players just as they leave for Mesa Mountain View High School.
The gym is an impressive place with all the championship banners on the walls. Although the warm-up time is shortened, Coach Quincy Lewis tries to keep his team on as near their normal pre-game routine as possible. With a little shooting contest between games, the Knights get just 13 minutes on the court before the tipoff. Several other teams from the tournament field are in the stands to watch the contest.
As the game begins, some of the players look more sluggish than usual from the travel, but the team gets off to a fast start with two steals for layups in the first few minutes. The Sabercats keep it close for a while, until Tannon Pedersen comes in off the bench and hits four successive, unanswered treys to push the margin from one to 13 points in less than two minutes.
He’s one of the players who was sick to his stomach earlier in the evening, but finishes the game as the leading scorer with 23 points, including 6-of-7 from beyond the arc. When he made the last of the six, the announcer asked, “Are you kidding me?”
Saguaro continues to play hard for the rest of the contest, but the lead never falls below double digits again and Lone Peak wins 75-49. Sabercat star Steven Morin is held to a 4-for-15 performance by lockdown defenders Brandon Reeves and Dillon Smith and finishes with just 10 points. He’s had a 58-point game earlier in the season.
Although some things in the game were uncharacteristically sloppy for the Knights, Coach Lewis thinks his team did a tremendous job, especially considering the travel circumstances. Reeves, Nate Austin and Tyler Haws also score in double figures, and Lewis is able to empty his bench in the last few minutes of the contest.
The players mingle with the families that have traveled to watch them for a short time before leaving for dinner and bed. They plan a quiet day Saturday before taking on host school Mountain View in the marquee contest Saturday night.