The Paton-Churdan Rockets split Saturday basketball games against Boyer Valley in Dunlap.
The girls lost to the Bulldogs 66-61 and the boys followed with a 59-49 win.
In the girls game, the Rockets struggled in the first quarter and were down by 12 points, 20-8, at the end of the quarter. “We did a nice job of fighting back to even the score at half and even took the lead late in the third quarter,” coach Chris Petersen said. The score was tied at 26 at halftime and tied again at 38 after three quarters.
“However, they hit some big shots and took advantage of our turnovers in the fourth quarter. We did a nice job of making it a game again with under a minute to go but couldn’t quite get over the hump,” the coach said.
Carleigh Paup scored nearly half the Rockets’ point with 29. She also had seven steals for the game.
Sydney Koch scored eight points and had five rebounds and five steals. Kasey Lane scored seven points and led the team in rebounding with 14. Jenna Beyers had seven points and five rebounds. Grace Geisler and Megan Carey scored four points each, and Reilly Niles scored two points.
The girls are 4-4 overall and in the Rolling Valley Activities Conference.
The boys game was close for the first half, but the Rockets pulled out ahead early in the second half and held the lead to win by 10 points, 59-49. The Rockets were up by two points after one quarter, 15-13, but down by one at halftime, 25-26. Field goals were hard to come by in the first half, with only seven 2-pointers, but as a team the boys were eight for eight from the free throw line that half. Joe Towers added a 3-pointer.
The Bulldogs’ shooting faltered in the third quarter. While they scored five points the Rockets put up 17 to take a 42-31 lead at the end of the quarter. They got no closer than seven points and the final score was 59-49.
The Rockets have a powerful offense with several players than can take the shots when it matters. Noah Juergensen was held to 12 points, but Jake Berns scored 19 and Joe Towers scored 15. Charlie Minnehan scored seven points and Chase Juergensen scored six points on a pair of 3-pointers.
High scorer for the game was Boyer Valley’s Joe Weber with 20 points.
Noah Juregensen had 12 rebounds, seven blocks and two steals. Berns and Towers each had eight rebounds, with three steals for Berns and four assists for Towers.
