AMERICAN FORK — Watching the American Fork girls basketball team is like watching a fine-tuned bolt of lightning. Their victims Thursday night were the Timpanogos Timberwolves, whom they defeated 65-50.
Both teams came out in the first quarter ready to run, and both teams looked good doing it with Timpanogos actually taking an 18-17 lead into the second stanza. But the Cavemen love to run, and they do it so convincingly that eventually it just wears other teams down.
"That was pretty exciting basketball right there. They all played well, they usually do," said American Fork coach Corey Clayton, whose team is now 13-0 and continues to be the only undefeated team in 5A.
"I'm as big a fan as anybody when I watch them," added Clayton.
Anybody watching this team has to wonder if they can be beaten, and they showed today that even if they run all game long and don't throw many subs out there, they can still run you to death in the end.
Clayton gave his team plenty of credit for its hard-nosed and never-ending 32-minute attack, and the entire squad had a hand in it, though it was Haley Holmstead that made the Timpanogos fans groan every time she touched the ball.
Holmstead finished with 22, but it seemed like much more than that to the T-Wolf fans, who watched her score nearly every time she touched the ball in the first half. And if she wasn't driving, maneuvering and putting the ball in the hoop, she was dishing it off so that a teammate could.
But American Fork doesn't just depend on its ability to run other teams into the ground or outshoot them, they do it with defense. And that defense reared its ugly head in the second and third quarters when they only allowed the T-Wolves 13 total points in 16 minutes while scoring 30 of their own. Timpanogos was only able to score six buckets in the two periods after taking the lead in the first.
And then all the Cavemen needed to do was hold on for victory.
"In the first quarter we were allowing them to get it into their posts too easily, but in the second quarter we put pressure on the wings to make the post entry more difficult," said Clayton.
Sixth man Makenzie Moea'i always gives the team a spark on the boards and offensively, and she finished the game with 10 points. Kaycee Mansfield came on with a strong second half, finishing with 16, and Amy Krommenhoek threw herself a birthday party with a pair of threes and 13 total points.
On the Timpanogos side of the ball, the T-Wolves continued their impressive outside shooting as they finished with six from behind the arc. Megan Bishop and Morgan Freestone had two long bombs each, but it just wasn't enough as they had a tough time getting the posts involved after the first quarter.
Amy Weitzeil did finish with 10 as did Morgan Bailey, and Noelle Sanders scored nine, but most of those buckets came early.
E-mail: jolsen@desnews.com