TAYLORSVILLE — The American Fork girls basketball team found a nice cure for jitters in the Class 5A Tournament on Tuesday: Play suffocating defense, shut down one of the state's top scorers, and most importantly, build an early lead.
The Cavemen did all that in a surprisingly easy 61-27 win over Layton in the first round of the 5A state tournament at Salt Lake Community College. American Fork advances to play Bingham in the quarterfinals at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
Although the Cavemen won the Region 4 championship, they were somewhat of a question mark entering tournament play. There was no doubt about their talent, tenacity or coaching, but you never know how a team composed of mostly juniors (six), and that has more sophomores (five) than seniors (three) will react on the big stage of a state tournament.
American Fork left no doubt from the start, scoring the game's first 10 points. It took the Lancers more than four minutes to get on the scoreboard.
"It was nice just for confidence-wise," Cavemen coach Corey Clayton said of his team's fast start. "You come into a state tournament and you have those first few minute jitters. You just never know how you're going to react. To get a little bit of a lead right off the bat makes you relax a little bit." American Fork's dominance was astounding.
Layton never got within six points of the Cavemen after falling behind 10-0. The Lancers couldn't consistently hit shots, as their best scoring spurts consisted of mini 5-0 runs in the second and third quarters.
Conversely, American Fork had several scoring runs. The Cavemen went on a 19-0 run in the second half, which included scoring the first 17 points of the fourth quarter. After Layton's Sheila Adams converted a three-point play midway through the third quarter to cut American Fork's lead to 28-20, the Cavemen scored nine straight points to put the game away.
The spurts were an example of what the Cavemen do best, which is to fire up their offense.
"We get out in transition and get those opportunities, I think that's scary for teams for us to get going like that," Clayton said. "We always want to try to get games into pick-up style. If we can get into shirts and skins, then I think we have a good shot at winning games." American Fork guard Nikki Ybarra was given the task of guarding Adams, 5A's leading scorer, and her play was impressive. Adams was held to 13 points, six below her average.
The Cavemen had a balanced scoring attack. Kaycee Mansfield had 11 points, while Haley Holmstead and Cydne Mason each scored 10 points.
American Fork will surely get a tougher challenge in the quarterfinals against Bingham, the reigning 5A champions. The Miners are bigger than the Cavemen, but American Fork has been waiting a long time for this opportunity.
"I'm excited to play Bingham," Mansfield said. "I've been wanting to play them the whole season. We finally have our chance."
Top performer: Nikki Ybarra defense on Layton's Sheila Adams.
Key stat: Layton shot just 20 percentin the first quarter
Up next: Bingham, 6 p.m., Thursday
E-mail: aaragon@desnews.com