Revenge can be sweet. Just ask the Beaver Beavers.
One week ago, the North Sevier Wolves edged the Beavers for the Region 13 title. Saturday afternoon at the Dixie Center, Beaver provided the paybacks, putting the finishing touches on a 22-2 season and 2A state boys basketball title with a 52-41 victory over the Wolves."We played extremely hard," Beaver coach Calvin Albrecht said. "Maybe the region loss was a blessing. We wanted this a little more."
For the Beavers, the championship is their second 2A title in three years, with the last coming in 1993 in a narrow victory over the Hurricane Tigers.
Five minutes into the contest, the score should have read: Beaver's Kevin Brown 10, North Sevier 6.
The senior center established inside dominance by scoring the first 10 points for the Beavers with strong inside power moves and towering tip-ins.
Beaver's Jeff Martin accounted for the other five in the quarter that included a three-point play the old-fashioned way to give the Beavers the 15-8 first quarter lead.
"He hasn't shot the ball well until the last two games, but we knew he had it in him," said Albrecht of Brown. "We isolated him a bit more to get him the ball on the lob."
A Brad Eyre lay-in to start the second quarter gave the Beavers their biggest lead of the game to that point at 17-8. Then North Sevier mounted a mini-comeback.
The Wolves pulled within five on a Peter Vest bucket, but that was as close as they would get get until midway through the fourth quarter.
Beaver forged to a 28-19 lead at intermission.
With the Wolves' regular-season scoring leader Tweeb Gladwell and inside player Cody Braithwaite on the bench with foul problems, the Beavers went up 11 points just into the third period at 31-20.
North Sevier's Ryan Heath picked up the slack and scored nine of the Wolves' 14 points in the third to keep it close at 40-33 at quarter's end.
Heath nailed a three as did Chad Mickelsen just into the fourth quarter to cut the led to five at 44-39, but the Wolves didn't score a field goal for 5 minutes and 10 seconds. By that time, the Beavers had put the game in the proverbial refrigerator.
"Ryan Heath kept us in the game," North Sevier coach Craig Gladwell said. "We were in it at 44-39, but we have defensive breakdowns and they got easy baskets"
Tweeb Gladwell, who averaged 21 points during the regular season, was held to nine points, thanks to the defense of Josh Hollingshead and Eyre.
Martin led the Beavers with 15 points, while Brown finished with 14 points. Heath had a team-high 14 for North Sevier.
Third-place game
San Juan 64, Millard 61
William McFarland and Monty Jones scored 18 point apiece and A.J. Mexican chipped in 11 as the Broncos edged the Eagles. Jason Borup had 26 points for Millard.
Fifth-place game
Manti 70, Juab 59
Manti's Alan Cox scored a game-high 25 points and Mike Cox added 18 points as the Templars handed the Wasps the 11-point loss. David Jensen had 16 points for Wasatch.