MURRAY — Lone Peak won its first meeting with Murray but may have lost something more important than a single game.
Junior guard Megan Thurman may have torn her ACL (knee injury) in the game's first quarter.
"That's so huge for us," said coach Shauna Kay, after her team's 49-35 win. "She's a very good shooting guard and one of our best defensive players."
Thurman had her back to the play when a Murray guard drove the lane and hit her leg. Thurman was called for the foul as she wasn't set, but she lay on the ground after the play crying. Sophomore Emilee Webster replaced Thurman and held her own.
"She played a great game," Kay said.
The Knights got off to a good start scoring but struggled with fouls early in the game. Senior forward Candace Mattson had three fouls in the first half and had to sit out when the score was the closest. She did end the game with eight rebounds and nine points.
The Spartans won the tip, but then turned the ball over very quickly on the offensive end three times in a row before Lindsey Arnoldus scored off a pass from Monique Pili. Then Arnoldus stole the ball and scored a layup to bring the score within a point.
But as the game progressed, the Knights would continue to pull away from Murray, and at one point led the Spartans by 16. Murray made some great plays in the fourth quarter, including a couple of steals, but then allowed the Knights to score on the other end. Six of Lone Peak's points came from the foul line in the game's final minutes.
The Knights star player, Lana Sitterud, didn't score until the second quarter, when she hit a shot off the team's efforts to thwart Murray's full-court press.
"I was surprised they kept it up for most of the game," Sitterud said of the press. She acknowledge that it caused a few turnovers, but it also cost the Spartans a few points. The guard, who has committed to play for the University of Utah next year, said she didn't change her usually high-scoring offensive game on purpose.
"I just wasn't making my shots," she said. "The posts were doing a good job, and my shots just weren't going in tonight . . . I'm doing as good as I should be. But that'll come. I have to keep shooting."
Kay noticed Sitterud's efforts to get her teammates the ball and praised her.
"She wasn't looking to score, but she had a great floor game," Kay said. "She does so many things for us, and we have a number of players who can score."
E-MAIL: adonaldson@desnews.com