High school girls basketball: No. 1 Lehi rolls past East for 5A quarterfinal win

Lehi held the defending state champs to just 12 first-half points and 19% shooting for the game

Published: Feb 25, 2020, 8:35 p.m. MST

East’s Elina Tausinga scoops up a rebound in front of Lehi’s Macie Warren during the 5A girls quarterfinal basketball game at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020. Steve Griffin, Deseret News

James has been covering high school sports in Utah for the Deseret News for three decades.

SALT LAKE CITY — Top seed Lehi wasn’t its customary dominant self on the offensive end of the court in Tuesday’s 5A quarterfinals. Realistically though, it didn’t matter.

The undefeated Pioneers played suffocating defense at the other end, rolling past No. 8 seed East 53-30 at the Huntsman Center to advance to Thursday’s semifinals against No. 4 Springville at 3 p.m.

“A lot of people talk about our offense and how great our offense is, but our defense is really what we strive (for). We try to get shots based on our defense, and our defense was huge.” — Lehi coach Aubrey Van Pelt.

“A lot of people talk about our offense and how great our offense is, but our defense is really what we strive (for). We try to get shots based on our defense, and our defense was huge,” said Lehi coach Aubrey Van Pelt.

Most of Lehi’s offense struggles came in the second quarter. After jumping out to a quick 16-3 lead after the first quarter, it only scored six points in the second quarter, leading only 22-12 at the break.

In the second half, it found an offensive groove and pulled away against the defending state champs.

“That’s always how it goes when you’re in a stadium like this. Your depth perception is just off a little bit — there’s three lines that you’re trying to figure out. I thought we started off really good, really strong. We had to find our tempo again, we had to adjust,” said Van Pelt.

Lehi finished well below its season average of 65.2 points, but defensively it held East to 19% shooting and 22 points below its season average.

Lehi 53, East 30

(Box score)

Leading scorers

Lehi: Jamisyn Heaton, 14

East: Elina Tausinga, 15

Jamisyn Heaton led Lehi with 14 points, with Lila Galeai adding 13 and Brinly Whiting chipping in with 10.

Despite the sluggish second quarter, Heaton said nobody was worried at halftime.

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“We have pretty good defense and really good offense, so if we stay consistent through that through the games I think we’ll win,” said Heaton.

Lehi scored on its first five possessions in the third, including 3-pointers from Whiting and Heaton to open up a 36-16 lead midway through the quarter.The biggest focus defensively for Lehi was slowing East leading scorer Nani Falatea, who has a knack for dictating the tempo of a game. The Pioneers limited her to 10 points on 3 of 17 shooting.

“We knew we had to stop Nani, and we knew we had to frustrate her down and if we could do that we could get everybody else frustrated and out of sync. That was key, that was huge,” said Van Pelt.

Elina Tausinga led East with 15 points.