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Phantoms extend winning streak to shot at regionals<br>

Phantom Eddie Tobin takes a freethrow oppor-tunity against Northland Prep Saturday

“Those two losses really hurt us,” Lopez said. “We shot less than 50 percent from the free-throw line and had we converted we would be in a tie for first place instead of battling for second or third.

“We led both teams the entire game and just couldn’t finish at the end. But I have to give our team a lot of credit because they did not get down on themselves and have bounced back when it would have been very easy to just give up.”

In Friday’s game at St. Michael’s the Canyon started slowly and trailed 22-17 at halftime.

“I thought we were just going through the motions in the first half,” said Lopez. “We didn’t have much energy and were getting killed on the boards. I had a few words to say at halftime about hustle, desire and intensity and our defensive effort increased significantly.”

The Phantoms outscored St. Michael’s 31 to 19 in the second half. Miguel Davila led the team with 11 points and Tempy Walker had 10.

“The Cardinals did a good job on Tempy and we needed everyone else to step up and contribute and they did,” Lopez said.

Dennis Booth and Ryan Eck each scored 5 points and Ryan had some key rebounds down the stretch. Tempy had two big defensive rebounds and a critical steal with less than two minutes to go. With the Phantoms up by 2 with 16 seconds to go, St. Michaels had the ball and a chance to tie or go up by one when Miguel Davila stole a pass at half court and was intentionally fouled. He made one free throw and the Canyon inbounded the ball as time expired with the score 46-43.

This was the first time the Phantoms have swept a St. Michael’s team.

The next night the Phantoms had an easy time with Northland Prep, jumping out to a 17-0 lead after the first quarter.

Lopez substituted freely throughout the game and the second half was played with a running clock. All 15 Phantoms scored with Dennis Booth and Chris Streit scoring 8 points each.

Grand Canyon has a tough end of the season road trip to Mogollon on Friday and at Joseph City on Saturday. A sweep would mean a possible second place tie and a top seed in the regional tournament in Seligman on Feb. 13 and 14.

“Our conference is very balanced this year and anything could happen at regionals,” Lopez said. “Everyone had beat everyone else throughout the season, so it is going to boil down to who can make free throws and rebound. We have as good a chance as everyone else and our kids are playing good defense and hopefully are peaking at the right time. It’s going to get very exciting”


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