Spanish Forks’ tenacious defense and offensive execution dominated Timpanogos to earn an 81-70 victory January 26 at Timpanogos. Balanced scoring from the starters seems to be the key for many of the Don’s victories as opponents cannot focus on just one player.

It wasn’t all good though as Timpanogos dominated the offensive glass in the first quarter. “The first quarter was like a shot and offensive rebound clinic. They (Timpanogos) came ready to play more than we did,” Coach Bailey stated. Despite the lack of defensive rebounding in the quarter, the Dons managed to take command of the game behind Zach Clayton and Dallin Naulu’s timely shooting to end the quarter with an 18-14 advantage.

In the second period, the Dons really turned up the heat defensively with point guard Dallin Naulu making it next to impossible for anyone to get by him. Offensively, Spanish Fork got things rolling especially from their big men. Teams leading scorer Griff Robles commented, “We were able to do a little bit better boxing out and get some easy fast break points. Just at practice this week we were working on getting the ball inside with me, Jason, and Devin and it helped me out to do as well as we did.” Coach Bailey, commenting on the play of Griff Robles stated, “He recovered after picking up two quick fouls. He also got some big offensive rebounds and put backs.” Spanish Fork outscored the T-wolves 25-15 in the quarter to open up a 14 point advantage 43-29.

The Dons were able to get behind the T-wolves defense on several occasions in the second half to get some easy transition buckets, Garrett Johnson being the beneficiary of many of them. Coach Bailey mentioned, “Garrett’s energy got us going again. They tried to press on us and felt that we could run on them.” The T-wolves never fully recovered although they sure made an effort. The Dons closed the third period with a comfortable 62-44 lead.

In this region though, there are no comfortable advantages. After Gardner’s free-throw half way through the fourth period gave the Dons a 22 point advantage, the T-wolves went on a 10-0 run to narrow the gap to 12 points with just less than four minutes left in the game before Steenstra was able to convert on a basket down low ending the run. It was a case of too little too late though as the Dons won their third consecutive game by 11 points.

The Dons were able to get scoring from all over the floor. Whether it was Steenstra and Robles posting up down low, Clayton and Gardner hitting the three’s or Naulu and Johnson beating their man off the dribble and creating shots for their teammates or taking it all the way, they seem to bring it all together. If you ask the Coach though, he’ll tell you, it starts at the defensive end were the Dons continue to play with the passion and fire and the desire to never give up. This is what Coach Bailey teaches and what he demands of his players.

The win puts Spanish Fork in the driver’s seat of region play giving them a 4-0 region record with an overall record of 10-4. The Dons have also put together a six game winning streak which they hope to ride as long as they can as #1 Pleasant Grove comes to town on Friday, February 2nd.

Dons Scoring: Robles-18, Johnson and Clayton-17, Naulu-11, Steenstra-9, Gardner-7, Nelson-2

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