Boys basketball: Weber survives Fremont’s comeback bid to win 60-58, moves to 3-0 in Region 1
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- Weber players Stockton Short, left, and Hunter Schenck, right, battle with Fremont’s Brendan Buxton (15) for the basketball on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Fremont’s Braden Flinders (3) rises to shoot as Weber’s Hunter Schenck, left, and Tukker Higgs, right, contest the shot Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Fremont’s Braden Flinders (3) looks to pass as Weber’s Cannon DeVries (32) defends on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Fremont’s Hunter Hansen (10) rises to shoot as Weber’s Hunter Schenck (3) defends Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Weber’s Hunter Schenck shoots the basketball during a game against Fremont on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Fremont’s Brendan Buxton (15) wards off Weber’s Griffyn Doughty (4) during a Region 1 boys basketball game Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Fremont’s David Calvert (25) fights with Weber’s Stockton Short, center, for the basketball Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Weber’s Logan Payne, left, and Fremont players Hunter Hansen (10) and Brendan Buxton, right, dive for a loose ball Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Weber High’s Cannon DeVries dribbles the basketball in a game against Fremont on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Weber’s Hunter Schenck (3) dribbles the basketball as Fremont’s Christian Blanch (24) pursues on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Weber High School in Pleasant View. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
PLEASANT VIEW — Stockton Short made six 3-pointers, led all scorers with 19 points and was a big reason why Weber High boys basketball pulled out a 60-58 win over rival Fremont on Tuesday night.
Short’s biggest play of the night, however, may have been the one that won’t go into the stat sheet.
With one second left in the game and trailing 60-58, Fremont inbounded the ball in front of its bench in hopes of getting off the last shot, either to win or send the game to overtime.
Dakota Argyle inbounded the ball to the corner to sophomore guard Hunter Hansen, who rose for a 3-point shot.
Short flew in to contest the shot, Hansen pulled the ball down, time expired and the Warriors celebrated a win at the buzzer against their rivals for the second time in three meetings.
“(Short) comes to practice every day, works, he had an injury and wanted to play so bad, he was itching and I’m like, ‘We gotta take time, region’s coming, just relax’ and he’s just stayed with it,” Weber coach Landon Cosby said.
“It’s not only (the shooting), he’s diving on loose balls, getting rebounds, he’s just a tough kid.”
A frantic first half filled with 3-pointers, turnovers, fouls, no-calls and the typical feistiness that accompanies this rivalry turned into a slower, methodical second half where the Silverwolves nearly erased a 12-point, fourth-quarter deficit.
Weber led 56-44 going to the fourth, then started playing “not to lose,” in Cosby’s words, but the Warriors still did enough and Fremont got no closer than two points.
“Down the stretch, we had a lead and they put the pressure on us. We had a few turnovers but kept our composure and kept getting stops on the defensive end, so I thought that’s what ultimately helped us get the win,” Cosby said.
Cannon DeVries scored 15 points and Hunter Schenck added 14 for Weber, which improved to 7-6 overall and 3-0 in Region 1.
The Warriors are also 5-2 in games decided by single digits, and Cosby credits the team’s senior leadership for helping keep the team composed in tight situations.
On Friday, they’ll meet the other 3-0 team in Region 1: two-time defending region champion Davis, on the road, in what is probably the loudest and hardest place to play these days in northern Utah.
“There’s going to be a lot of battles. There’s some really good teams in our league that are well-coached. I know it’s cliché, but we’re just trying to go one at a time and focus on that, not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Cosby said.
Though Fremont lost by two, there are one hundred other scenarios where the Silverwolves would’ve won Tuesday’s game by six to 10 points.
Now, the Silverwolves are 5-5 overall, 0-2 in Region 1 and face another winless team in the region yearning for a win, Layton, on Friday at home.
They missed several, if not dozens, of layups and other close shots around the rim all night against Weber, sometimes multiple times in the same possession.
Meanwhile, Short was hitting the long ball for the Warriors. He made his first 3 in the first quarter to put Weber ahead 3-2, then Fremont went up 13-6 before a 12-0 Weber run helped give the Warriors an 18-17 lead going to the second quarter.
Short, who missed the first handful of games this season with injuries leftover from football season, made a 3 for a 24-20 lead, then made another for 27-24, then made his fourth of the game to put Weber up 35-27 after Schenck banked in a 3 of his own.
After a Fremont turnover created a Weber runout, Cosby yelled “share it!” from the bench to Short, who did not hear what Cosby said and promptly drained another 3 to make it 38-28.
Another big push by the Warriors came in the third quarter. DeVries made two free throws plus a layup for a 49-41 lead while Weber’s student section chanted “make a layup!” at the Fremont team during this time.
Two possessions later, Short drove to the basket and passed to Griffyn Doughty, who knocked down a corner 3, then DeVries knocked down a 3 late in the quarter to make it a 56-44 lead.
Fremont got five quick points at the start of the fourth through Hansen and David Calvert, then Calvert made another bucket to cut the deficit to 56-51 before DeVries broke Weber’s scoring drought with an underhand layup.
Tukker Higgs’ two free throws made it 60-55 for Weber with a couple minutes left that eventually served as the Warriors’ final points.
Hansen led Fremont with 16 points, Argyle scored 13 and both Calvert and Braden Flinders added 11.