Cavemen turn up defensive effort in win over Orem

AMERICAN FORK — At times the American Fork Cavemen basketball team can look like a runaway Greyhound bus — out of control and in a hurry to go nowhere.

But when they do get their steering straight, their athleticism and quick defensive skills are more than most opponents can handle. Both assets helped the Cavemen run off a spurt late in the second quarter and early in the third Wednesday night in a 65-55 come-from-behind win over the Orem Tigers.

"We need to take care of the ball and be strong with the ball, but let things come to us," Cavemen coach Doug Meacham said. "In the first quarter we didn't do that. We weren't patient offensively."

For most of the first two quarters the style and pace of play was to Orem's liking. By getting easy shots inside and taking advantage of American Fork's careless passing and turnovers, the Tigers led up until the final 90 seconds of the first half.

"We had seven turnovers in the first quarter, and that was from guys just trying to do too much," Meacham said.

Leading 14-10 after one period, the Tigers extended the lead to 20-14 midway in the second period when Nathan Lloyd tipped in his own miss. But American Fork's Clayton Searle put back his own miss on the other end to start a 16-4 Cavemen run to end the second quarter.

First, Rick Shoff tied the game 22-22 with back-to-back short jumpers. Then, after the Cavemen tossed bricks from behind the 3-point arch for almost two quarters, Brenan Davis hit consecutive treys to give the Cavemen a 30-24 halftime lead.

David Olsen kept the momentum going by opening the second half with another Cavemen three and a layup. Orem got all the easy hoops in the first half, but suddenly the Cavemen were getting to the hole with ease. Consecutive layups by Searle and Olsen gave the Cavemen their biggest lead at 45-29 late in the third quarter. After the game had been tied at 22, American Fork outscored the Tigers 23-7 over the next eight minutes.

Meacham credited the turnaround to the defense of James Shoff on Orem's main scorer, Craig Cusick, and the momentum-changing shot blocking of Searle.

"We're really trying to push our defense, and I think the guys are finally starting to buy into it," Meacham said.

However, the Cavemen again got careless in the fourth quarter and allowed the Tigers back in the game. A 3-pointer by Craig Cusick with just under four minutes to play trimmed the score to 54-47. Orem had a chance to get closer a few possessions later, but Lloyd missed a wide-open layup that would have trimmed the margin to six. The Tigers never threatened again.

Searle led four Cavemen scorers in double figures with 22 points. Rick Shoff added 16, Davis 12 and Olsen 10. Cusick was Orem's top man with 17 hard-earned points, followed by 12 from a foul-plagued Tanner Lamb.

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E-mail: jimr@desnews.com