With the Stansbury basketball court surrounded by both screaming Grantsville and Stansbury fans, the Stallions’ opening game Wednesday night felt more like an opening round game of playoffs.

The Stallions showed up to play in the closing five minutes of play to overcome a six-point deficit to the Cowboys and turned it into a 42-37 Stansbury victory as the final buzzer blared. The five-point victory is the first in Stansbury history.

“I was really happy with how aggressive they came out and played,” said Stansbury basketball coach Ryan Harris. “That was one of my big concerns heading into the first game.”

Seniors Taylor Hunt and Reggie Roberts led Stansbury to victory with 14 points each in the game. The Cowboys were led by Austin Cunliffe with 10 points as the only Grantsville player to reach double digits. Caleb Nesbitt finished with 9 points in the loss.

“We are a good team when we play unselfish,” said Grantsville basketball coach Shane Heath. “I just felt that we got out of our game plan at the end of the game.”

In what turned out to be a defensively dominated contest, both offenses struggled coming out of the gate in the face of physical defense. Cunliffe came out strong in the first by scoring 5 first-quarter points after nailing a 3-pointer to break a 7-7 tie with 4:05 left in the quarter.

Sherod Ellis found himself at the right place in the Stansbury fast break and scored four points in the opening period to keep Stansbury close but a layup with 25.8 seconds left by Caleb Nesbitt gave the Cowboys a 12-11 lead after the opening quarter.

Led by the two Stallion seniors, Stansbury fought back with 7 points from Hunt coming from the inside while Roberts nailed two 3-pointers to score six in the quarter. In fact, Stansbury closed out the first half by scoring the final 11 points to take a 24-20 lead into halftime. Cunliffe started out the second quarter on fire by scoring five quick points but it was Stansbury finishing strong, which seemed to be the theme of the game.

“We spend a lot of time in practice focusing on crucial moments of the game,” Harris said. “It is critical that we finish strong and we did that against Grantsville.”

Compared to the fourth quarter, the third quarter lacked excitement as both teams combined to score only 11 points. Grantsville cut into the Stansbury lead by closing out the third quarter on a 5-2 run fueled by a 3 by Nesbitt and a post bucket by Ben Tripp. Heading into the fourth, Stansbury held a slim 28-27 lead.

That Stansbury lead quickly evaporated with the hustle of Damon Deavila coming off the bench. Deavila scored the first five points of the fourth and Nesbitt added a basket in the paint to give Grantsville a 34-28 lead with 4:59 remaining in the game.

Hunt hit a huge 3-pointer in the corner for Stansbury that seemed to drastically sway the momentum in the Stallions’ favor. Stansbury out-scored Grantsville 14-3 the rest of the quarter.

Even with Grantsville trailing, the Cowboys still had a chance to run their offense in hopes of a comeback but turnovers and players losing their cool with two technical fouls sealed the inaugural game for Stansbury.

“Scheduling Grantsville for the first game is hard because they are a good team but we got fortunate at the end of the game,” Harris said.

Grantsville’s next game will be Wednesday at home against Cyprus at 7 p.m. while Stansbury will travel to Westlake on Friday at 7 p.m.

Jake Gordon: jgordon@tooeletranscript.com