photos by Charlie McDonald (charlie.mcdonald@surewestsports.com)
by Mike Finnerty (mike.finnerty@surewestsports.com)
There are certainly no off nights in the very tough Delta River League, not even for SureWest Sports' No. 1 ranked Sheldon Huskies (16-4, 4-1).
On Wednesday, No. 11 Oak Ridge upset Sheldon, 39-35, snapping the Huskies' seven-game winning streak and giving Sheldon it's first loss to a Sacramento area team in two years.
But as all great teams must do, the Huskies bounced back Friday night on the home court with a 74-57 win over the No. 4 Pleasant Grove Eagles (18-3, 3-2) in front of capacity crowd and then some.
The win was sparked by a 19-0 Sheldon run in the middle of the fourth quarter, and it would be a run that would doom the Eagles.
"In the third quarter I thought we came out pretty strong, our defense was a little tougher, our rebounding, we hit the shots we had to, and in that fourth quarter we stuck it to them in the first four minutes, it was a good feeling," said Sheldon head coach Joey Rollings.
While there were several Sheldon players who had an impact on the game, it was junior D'erryl Williams (6'3" guard) who did it all for the Huskies with a team high in points (22) and rebounds (11), while on defense Williams was a force with five blocks.
"We just wanted to come out hard because we knew PG was a good team, and we wanted to fast break and play our game," said Williams.
Sheldon took at 7-6 lead in the first quarter, and the lead would remain with until Pleasant Grove's Matthew Hayes drilled a three-pointer with 1:05 left in the second to give the Eagles a 29-28 heading to the halftime break.
A big performance through the first two quarters came from senior Ryan Manning, scoring all 12 of his points in the opening half joining Williams who had 10 points midway through.
In the third the score was tied 40-40, Sheldon went up 44-40, and then Pleasant Grove's Colfax Nordquist fouled out and the Huskies finished out the third up 49-42.
Pleasant Grove's Cody Demps (11 points) fouled out in the fourth, but there was really no stopping Sheldon in the final quarter during the all important 19-0 run.
Any chance the Huskies had to push the ball down the court, they did. Steals led to layups, turnovers led to layups, and 9 of 11 shooting from the free throw line helped the Huskies lead climb from 52-47 to 71-47 (6:26 to 2:04 left in fourth).
Despite the loss, Malik Thames played very well for Pleasant Grove scoring 22 points.
Sheldon's Dakari Allen finished with 16 points, six rebounds, six assists, and five steals. Kyiron Thomas had 11 points.
As defending back-to-back Division I section champions, Sheldon players know full well, especially after the loss to Oak Ridge earlier in the week, that they must take one game at a time.
Said Williams, "It's a big, big win for us, but we just look for the next game. We want to get the next win and keep winning and go to State hopefully."