HERRIMAN — In an intense game between two rivals, Riverton showed its composure down the stretch to snatch a road win at Herriman.
In a back-and-forth contest, the Silverwolves flexed their muscle in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Mustangs 22-13 in the final period of play in a 57-50 win on Thursday night.
“I told them to play quality defense, keep the 3s out, rebound the basketball and the kids did all the work. We went down into the fourth quarter down two, I told them that we had to outscore them by three and we got a little bit extra on that,” Riverton head coach Jodi Lee said.
Avalon Miller led the way for the Silverwolves with 17 points, including seven in the fourth quarter.
“Ava is a quality post player. Anytime we feed her the ball, we’re going to be in a good position, and we fed her the ball really well tonight,” Lee said.
Kinlee Hatfield added 13 points and Ruby McLeish had nine points for Riverton. Jayda Van Dyke scored 10 points for the Mustangs.
Riverton broke open a tie game with just over two minutes left, going on a 7-0 run to take a 53-46 lead. That run, save for a shot from Miller, was all earned at the free-throw line. Miller made a free throw, Hailey Burt made three and Hatfield made one. Good post play from Miller and aggressive key drives from the rest of the Silverwolves was important for Riverton to separate itself from Herriman.
The Silverwolves held their composure together late in the game. In its last game, a loss against Copper Hills, the Grizzlies outscored the Silverwolves 21-10 in the third quarter. Lee made sure the same letdown didn’t happen tonight.
“I was really pleased with that. The other night, we lost to Copper Hills at our place and I thought our composure was really poor, myself included. Our bench, our players, we weren’t hitting free throws down the stretch, we actually shot really poorly and that’s something we really worked on in practice yesterday and it really showed today because that sealed the deal for us,” Lee said.
Riverton handed Herriman just its second loss of the season and the Mustangs’ first loss in almost a month.
“This is a huge win. It’s an intense rivalry and to be able to come and do it on Herriman’s home floor. Not only is it an intense rivalry, but that’s one of the best teams in the state. This is a huge confidence booster for us. We know if we can play four quarters, we can compete with anybody and we did that tonight,” Lee said.
As region play gets rolling, Region 3 is tightly grouped together, with four teams — Herriman, Bingham, Copper Hills and Riverton — all grouped together at 2-1 in region play. The region has the potential to be one of the most competitive regions in the state.
“Our region is so tough and you have people going to other people’s floors and beating them on their home floors. We just did that tonight, Copper did that to us, Bingham did it to Copper, Herriman did it to Bingham. This is the toughest region ever and this just solidifies that we are a contender, for sure,” Lee said.