Madison comes out on top in ‘Battle of the Bobcats’

by: Brigham Taylor

bobcatbeat.com, Sports Journalism class

Rexburg — The Madison Bobcats beat the Sky View Bobcats (Utah) 76-60 on Saturday. The game was played at the normal 7:30 p.m. even though it was a Saturday game. Both teams were undefeated coming into Saturday’s game with two common opponents, the Highland Rams and Syracuse Titans.

Madison received a huge boost from their starters with three of them scoring double digits and combining to score 60 of the team’s 76 points. Jaxon Edelmayer and Nate Webb were the two high scorers for Madison with 19 and 30 points respectively.

Madison came into the game off of a 65-31 win at the home of the defending state champions, the Highland Rams. They tried to carry that momentum with them against a tough team from Utah.

“We definitely remember them from last year, they are one of our biggest opponents,” Jaxon Edelmayer of the Madison Bobcats said, “We wanted to have a good start [going into] the Christmas break.”

The game started with a whole lot of free throws. Seven of Madison’s first 18 points were off of free throws. There were a total of 12 free throws taken in the first six minutes of play.

Assistant Coach Scott White of the Madison Bobcats said, “we came out really well … one of the big things was we were really attacking the basket.” Madison finished the first quarter with a 23-13 lead.

The second quarter was a little bit tougher for Madison than the first. Coach White said that he thought that they could have played better in the second quarter.

“We started settling a little bit, we didn’t attack as much and they brought the game back,” White said.

Madison, however, finished the first half with a solid lead at 42-33.

It was all downhill from there. Madison closed out the final two quarters in style with a few 3-pointers and multiple lay-ups. They finished the third quarter with a 61-45 lead and at one point lead by 20 in the fourth quarter

There was a scary moment, however, at the beginning of the fourth quarter when Konner Jackson took a charge and got hit with an elbow to the eye. He went down for a couple minutes and had blurry vision and had to be helped off the court. He did not appear to have any signs of a concussion.

“No concussion. [He didn’t have any] signs of a concussion.” White said.

Madison finished with 76 points, 16 assists, and 31 rebounds. They shot 89% from the free-throw line and 53% from the field. Con Ball had 10 points with Justin Weiszhaar adding 5 and Mason Downey scoring 11. Jackson Edelmayer scored 19 of his own, Konner Jackson added 1 and Nate Webb led the team with 30 points.