5A quarterfinals
Top seeded Maple Mountain dominated its first day of the 5A tournament with two 3-0 sweeps, including a 25-10, 25-15, 25-17 win over No. 9 Viewmont in the 5A quarterfinals.
“It’s a fun environment with all these games going on at the same time,” said Maple Mountain head coach Geoff Wright. “There’s great talent all over the place. We haven’t seen Viewmont before and they battled Alta and they play different than how we’ve been playing down in our region. We’re excited to play a new team.”
Taft Hillman led the Golden Eagles in blocks and aces with six aces and four blocks in the win. Maple Mountain’s Trey Thornton led in kills with 13 on 27 attempts, Johan Stoop, Mac Hillman and Gavin Pricer all had five kills.
“A lot of the chemistry is coming together and just being a family,” Wright said. “I like how they just build, support each other and work together as brothers.”
With the win Maple Mountain advanced to Saturdays 5A semifinal at UVU.
“We’re going to try to not be overconfident of course, Saturday is going to have some good matches,” said Wright. “We won’t be overconfident, but you have to come in with confidence that you’re going to win.”
For the third time this season the Spanish Fork Dons and the Wasatch Wasps went down to five sets. The two regular season games were split between the teams, but No. 5 Spanish Fork took the 25-15, 20-25, 25-20, 23-25, 15-11 win on Thursday to advance to the 5A semifinal.
“We have battled with Wasatch multiple times this season and it goes five sets each time,” said Spanish Fork head coach Valerie Benson. “So, just that back and forth and not letting another team go on a big run is something we’ve been working really hard on. We just have to keep doing that and stopping opponents from going on a run.”
Dons’ Connor Brockbank led with 23 kills, 19 digs and two aces while Treyven Davies also tallied 18 digs. Caleb Cabrera also made life hard on the Wasps at the net, recording eight blocks in the quarterfinal win.
“I thought we took care of free balls,” Benson said. “We’ve worked really hard on executing on free balls and we did really well at that today.”
Spanish Fork will face top-seeded Maple Mountain on Saturday at UVU.
“The message was to keep having fun. That’s been our motto this whole season, with it being the inaugural season we just want everyone to love the sport and have passion and remember its a game. We play hard, give full effort and just have fun.”
No. 2 Olympus had to crawl its way to a 23-25, 25-18, 20-25, 25-19, 16-14 win over No. 10 Skyline in the second round of the 5A tournament. The Titans led 14-11 in the final set, but the Eagles fought back to a 14-14 tie.
“There’s always a little bit of anxiety in sets like that, but I think we just trusted what got us here,” said Olympus head coach Brett Peterson. “We trusted the defense and trusted that we could finish it out. We’ve got a lot of confidence in our guys ant they’ve put in a lot of work to earn it.”
After the tie, Olympus quickly answered back with a two point run, with Yuse Jones getting the final kill for the 16-14 fifth set win. Jones ended the game with 15 kills.
“It really can’t be understated how important it is to go fight for a win at state and know what it takes to win at state. The hope is that we can then go in and take that fire to any team we play and do exactly what we just did.”
Titans’ Reef Smylie led the defense with eight blocks while also dishing out five aces. Olympus senior Miles Burningham had 16 kills while Soren Jepsen also had 12 kills and two blocks in the win.
Peterson said while the offense has been good, it was the defense that saved his team today.
“The offense was good and has been good all season,” Peterson said. “Today, I think it was our defense that got us through that match. It’s a new thing for us in some ways to rely on our defense to go get balls up and turn digs into offense, and I thought they were great at that in that match.”
No. 3 Bountiful stayed perfect throughout the first day of the 5A state tournament, including a 26-24, 25-18, 25-23 sweep over No. 13 Clearfield in the quarterfinals.
“I thought they stayed consistent,” said Bountiful head coach Sarah Chism. “There were some nerves at the beginning but they battled through that together and stayed consistent with our gameplan and they let the game come to them. I thought they didn’t force anything, they stayed patient throughout the day.”
RedHawks’ outside hitter Connor Burleson had 14 kills, while Landon Chism had seven and Jacob Bremner had four to advance to the 5A semifinals.
“The goal was to get to Saturday and we wanted to put up a big fight,” said Chism. “We’re super excited to see what we can do on Saturday and It’s so fun to see the level of volleyball throughout the state. It’s so fun to watch and to be apart of.”
5A second round
Top seeded Maple Mountain started its state tournament with a 25-9, 25-17, 25-20 sweep over No. 17 Box Elder in the second round of the 5A tournament. The Golden Eagles recorded eight aces and six blocks as a team. Trey Thornton led on the net for Maple Mountain with 13 kills in the win.
No. 9 Viewmont narrowly escaped the second round of the 5A tournament with a 25-21, 25-22, 21-25, 23-25, 16-14 win over No. 8 Alta. The Vikings started the game with a 2-0 set lead, but the Hawks fired back and tied it at 2-2. Viewmont took the 16-14 lead in the fifth set to take the win and advance to the 5A quarterfinals. Viewmont middle blockers Christian Hirst and Thomas McKay stood out in the win, with Hirst recording four kills and three blocks and McKay with seven blocks and four kills. Dallin Lether also added five kills, one block and 31 assists.
No. 5 Spanish Fork took care of buisness with a 25-13, 25-15, 25-19 sweep over No. 21 Granger in the second round of the 5A tournament. Dons’ setter Tyson Mansfield tallied 39 assits, while Connor Brockbank led with 19 kills. Caleb Cabrera also helped Spanish Fork with nine kills.
No. 4 Wasatch avoided a comeback from No. 13 Salem Hills to win 25-18, 25-20, 16-25, 25-20 and advance to the 5A quarterfinals. The Wasps’ defense stood out in the win, holding off the SkyHawks attacks. Wasatch’s outside hitter Chase Billeter stood out in the win alongside JJ Serre, who had 10 kills in the win.
No. 11 Clearfield bounced back from a set one loss to beat No. 6 Hunter 18-25, 25-20, 25-13, 25-23 in the 5A second round. Falcons’ outside hitters Gabe Christensen and Sebastian Rodriguez led the offense, with Christensen tallying 13 kills, 17 digs, and one ace, while Rodriguez had 10 kills and five digs. Clearfield’s Steve Serious had nine blocks while Tayvian Singletary had six kills and six blocks.
No. 3 Bountiful wasted no time, defeating No. 14 Brighton 25-14, 25-21, 25-21 in the 5A second round. Bountiful’s Connor Burleson tallied 14 kills, with Landon Chism right behind with 13 kills. Mason Allen also supported the RedHawks with eight kills in the win.
No. 10 Skyline weathered a comeback after going up 2-0 against No. 7 Timpview to win the second round match 25-17, 25-23, 21-25, 18-25, 15-12. Skyline’s Henry Hiatt led in kills with six, while Kaleo Reyes had five and Maxwell Malmrose had four in the win.
No. 2 Olympus swept No. 15 Cedar Valley 25-21, 27-25, 25-21 and advanced to the 5A quarterfinals. The Titans recorded 39 kills, seven aces and six blocks in the second round win. Olympus’ outside hitter Miles Burningham led the offense with 14 kills and three aces. Burningham was backed up by Reef Smylie who had 12 kills.