Fremont’s dominance of Utah teams rolled on Tuesday night at the University of Utah.
The defending 6A state champion Silverwolves ran their winning streak to 47 straight against Utah teams as its sized overwhelmed Bingham on its way to easy 68-37 quarterfinal victory.
Timea Gardiner scored 25 points on 10-of-14 shooting while Maggie Mendelson added 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks as Fremont outscored Bingham all four quarters.
“It felt great. Bingham is our rival. They’re a great team and they’re always a great team, and we’re a good team as well, so going up against them the rivalry is real. We went out there and played our game and came out with the win,” said Gardiner.
With the win Fremont advances to Thursday’s 6A semifinal and will take on Westlake at the University of Utah at 4:40 p.m.
“They’re awesome, they’re really good, they play in a very good region. All of the teams in Region 4 are really talented and they’ve played good basketball all year,” said Fremont coach Lisa Dalebout.
Fremont’s size is a mismatch for just about every team in the state, but Westlake has size of its own which should make for an interesting matchup.
For Bingham it was a big problem. Even though the Miners held their own on the glass as Fremont only had a 38-31 rebound edge, there was a major disparity in interior scoring as Fremont had a 50-8 edge in the paint.
“Really impressed with how they did a good job getting to the basket,” said Dalebout.
Fremont’s coach thought the players shared the ball really well and got the ball in good sports for the 6-foot-3 Gardiner and the 6-foot-5 Mendelson.
Fremont started to open things up midway through the opening quarter closing on an 8-2 run to take an 15-9 lead. All four buckets came at the rim during the stretch.
Bingham responded quickly in the second quarter cutting the deficit to 17-16, but Fremont answered right back scoring on six of its last seven possessions in the first half and led 29-18 at the break.
Bingham shot just 21% in the first half as Fremont dominated inside with a 18-4 edge in the paint.
Fremont ran its lead to 33-18 early in the third, but that’s when Bingham’s Sierra Lichtie injected a little life into the underdog Miners with three straight 3-pointers to whittle the deficit to 35-27 with 5:00 left in the third.
That was as close as Bingham would ever get as Dalebout helped her team refocus defensively.
“We made a defensive change where we tried to limit her touches because she’s so good,” said Dalebout.
The defense adjustment worked to performance as her players responded with a 19-1 run over the next seven and a half minutes to bury the Miners for good.
Lichtie finished with 21 points to lead the Miners in the loss.
Bingham is the last Utah team to beat Fremont, which came in the 2020 state championship game. Since then, Fremont’s only two losses have been against out-of-state teams — including two back in December to nationally ranked teams at the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix.