After flying high against the American Heritage Patriots last Saturday, the East Leopards came back down to earth. The New Year welcomed East with a 81-51 whooping from Alta on Wednesday. While losing is never fun, East can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Utah basketball rankings (they are ranked 57th, while Alta is ranked first).
When it comes to explaining why East lost, one person who can't be blamed is Sawyer Sutton. Despite the final result, he scored 21 points. The game was Sutton's 11th in a row with at least ten points. Another player making a difference was Cooper Dodd, who scored ten points.
Alta had a senior duo take command as Ace Reiser scored 18 points along with seven assists and five rebounds and Jaxon Johnson scored 20 points. The game was Reiser's 11th in a row with at least ten points. The team also got some help courtesy of Dash Reiser, who scored ten points along with five assists and five rebounds.
East's defeat dropped their record down to 6-5. As for Alta, the victory was the fourth in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 12-1.
Both squads are looking forward to the support of their home crowds in their upcoming games. East will take on Riverton at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Riverton knows how to get points on the board -- the squad has finished with flashy point totals in its past ten contests -- so hopefully East likes a good challenge. As for Alta, they will be playing at home against Skyline at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Skyline is strutting with some offensive muscle, as they've averaged 56.4 points per game.
