For the second time in as many nights, a Sky View Bobcat basketball team crashed the Logan Grizzlies senior night party. One night after the Lady Bobcats disposed of the Lady Grizz, the boy’s team beat Logan, 48-43.

Unlike the ladies team, however, the boy’s found the going a little tougher. After leading by as many 16 points in the second quarter, the Bobcats had to hold off a furious Logan rally to hold on for the win and complete the season sweep of the Grizzlies.

“They’ve played us tough every game, every game has gone down to the wire,” SV head coach Kevin Andersen said. “The first two we probably could have lost those first two. Tonight they were right in it — two point game — they’ve played us tough all three games. Hats off to them for their effort.”

Kyler Carlsen led Sky View with a game-high 17 points and also pulled down seven rebounds. Carlsen also came up with probably the biggest defensive play of the game for the Bobcats as he blocked a game-tying 3-point attempt by Logan’s Sage Nyman.

Following two close wins over the Grizzlier earlier in the season, the Bobcats (16-4, 11-3) looked like they were going to blow Logan out early. After the Grizzlies scored the first bucket of the game, Sky View responded with an 11-2 run to take control.

The Bobcats continued to pull away from the Grizzlies in the second quarter as they knocked down their first six field goal attempts. The hot shooting included back-to-back 3-pointers by Carlsen and Nick Eskelson which gave the Cats a 26-10 lead.

“I thought the first half we really did some good things defensively and offensively,” Andersen said. “We talked about at halftime that they were going to come out and put a run together, and they came out and put their run together.”

Sky View had its worst quarter of the night in the third, as they were outscored, 14-6. The Grizzlies were lead on the comeback trail by guard Luke Patterson. The senior dropped in a team-high 14 points. Junior center Josh Sadler also gave the Bobcats fits as he recorded a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

“With a valley rival anything can happen, and it’s kind of expected that anything can happen and they could make it a game like that — especially on their home court,” Eskelson said.

The Grizzlies continued to chip away at the Sky View lead, and eventually tied the game at 40 on a pair of free throws by junior Devin Cannon with less than four minutes to play. The Bobcats would answer quickly, however, as Eskelson knocked down a pull-up jumper to put the Cats back on top.

“We knew we had to bring energy in the first half. Coming into halftime we were feeling good, and we knew they were going to make a run,” Eskelson said. “We just had to try and weather the storm in the second half.”

Sky View would continue to cling to the lead, but was unable to pull away from the Grizzlies over the final minutes. Despite nearly turning the ball over twice in the final minute, the Bobcats were able to regain control and Carlsen was fouled with 35 seconds remaining.

The senior calmly knocked down both free throws of the one-and-one situation to put the Cats up three. He then thwarted any chance at overtime with his block before Don Corbell tacked on two more from the charity stripe for good measure.

As a team, the Bobcats were deadly from the line as they connected on 13-of-14 free throws. A stat Andersen said was key to pulling out the win.

“Well, 13-for-14 from the line is always nice. You miss two or three more of those and it’s a whole different game,” He said. “We had some kids step up and hit some timely shots when we were struggling and knocked down free throws.”

The Bobcats now finish off the regular season next week at Box Elder before heading to the state tournament.

Score

Sky View

Logan