Here’s a recap of Thursday’s 4A quarterfinals at Southern Utah University, with No. 1 Green Canyon, No. 2 Payson, No. 4 Dixie and No. 6 Hurricane all securing semifinal berths.
Hurricane 59, Ridgeline 51
Hurricane’s boys basketball team showed unbelievable resilience to keep its tournament hopes alive on Thursday afternoon.
Down 16 points with less than six points left in the game, the sixth-seeded Tigers staged an improbable comeback, rallying to force overtime and then pulling away from No. 3 Ridgeline for the 59-51 victory in the 4A quarterfinals at SUU.
Hurricane closed the final 5:41 of regulation and then overtime on a 25-1 run.
“They’re just fighters. The guys kept believing, they kept working, got a little bit of momentum, and let that roll with them. Thank goodness Ridgeline was able to miss some shots, and we’re able to capitalize on it,” said Hurricane coach Adam Stout. “Finally, shot better. We didn’t shoot very well in the third quarter. Just couldn’t get anything to go. And that changed for us in the fourth.”
After watching Hurricane storm back to tie the game at 51-51 on a 3-pointer by Brigham Kemp with 17 seconds left, Ridgeline had two great looks at the rim at the end of regulation but both shots bounced off the rim.
Ridgeline shot 66 percent in the third quarter to open up the seemingly comfortable lead, but it went ice cold after that. It missed its last 14 shots over a stretch of over nine minutes.
Over six of those minutes were with starting point guard Dawson Low on the bench after fouling out with 2:29 remaining. He finished with 17 points.
“He’s the motor that makes them run, and he’s a phenomenal player. He was the one that we felt like we needed to slow down and stop and we knew he does gamble a little bit. Fortunately, we were able to get some fouls on him and then get him out. We we’re lucky to get some of those bounces,” said Stout.
Hurricane’s Kemp led all scorers with 27 points, which included two massive 3-pointers in the final two minute of regulation. He also opened the scoring in overtime with a on a three-point play after being fouled on a driving lay-up.
His overtime bucket came after a long injury timeout as medical personnel attended to a ghastly fractured leg to Ridgeline junior Andrew Pinochi with 2:17 left in overtime.
Pinochi collapsed after contact coming down for a rebound, with most of the America First Events Arena crowd gasping and immediately going silent upon seeing the lower half of Pinochi’s leg bent sideways.
“It’s a terrible feeling anytime that happens to anybody,” said Stout. “We love the competition, these other teams we play give us the opportunity to play on this stage and you only want what’s best for them, and unfortunately in sports it’s part of life.”
Four Stout and the Hurricane team, it was emotional too as the day before its second-leading scorer RJ Hurst went down with a high-ankle sprain, ending his season.
“It’s been an emotional 24 hours for me knowing that’s the end of season. It’s really tough to see a kid go down to injury, it’s the hard thing about sports,” said Stout.
An air cast was place on Pinochi’s left leg, and he was eventually wheeled into an ambulance and transported to a local hospital.
With the win, Hurricane now advances to the semifinals to face Payson on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Payson 52, Pine View 48
Ahead of Thursday’s 4A quarterfinal on Thursday between Payson and Pine View, the law of averages suggested the first team to 52 points would win.
Payson’s scoring defense ranked fourth in 4A allowing 51.7 ppg, and Pine View ranked sixth giving up 51.8 ppg.
Coincidentally, that’s exactly how the game played out — the first team to 52 points did win.
No. 2 seed Payson sank two free throws in the final second to eke out the 52-48 win over No. 10 seed Pine View at SUU.
Pine View’s Adam Moore drained a 3-pointer with six seconds remaining in the game to cut the deficit to 50-48, but after a timeout, Payson ran a perfect inbounds pass that prevented Pine View from fouling until one second left. Payson made both free throws, rendering the final second insignificant.
“State tournament game, you never know what team is going to come out and perform. And I’m glad that we came out in that first quarter and just established our defense,” said Payson coach Anthony Mitchell. “Credit to them, they fought back, and they made it a game a couple times, and we just talked about every time they make a run, that we’ve got to make sure we’re smart with the ball and stop that run as soon as we can. I think for the most part, we did that.”
Payson never trailed, leading by as many as 10 points midway through the third quarter.
Three different times in the fourth quarter, Pine View scored to make it a one possession game, but each time Payson had an answer.
Waylon Francom buried a 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter after Pine View had cut the lead to 40-39.
Later in the quarter, Kade Jensen hit a jumper that extended Payson’s lead to 45-41 at the 3:06 mark. Payson’s top scorer all season, Legend Reynoso, scored arguably the biggest bucket of the game on a rebound-putback with 1:27 left stretching the lead to 47-43.
It was one of 14 offensive rebounds for Payson, which enjoyed a 14-2 edge on the offensive glass and a 30-19 overall edge in rebounding. That led to 11 second-chance points, compared to just two for Pine View.
“We knew any possession was going to give us an advantage. And so rebounding is one that happens every single possession. And so we really focus on getting those extra possessions offensively and keeping them from getting extra possession defensively,” said Mitchell.
Quinn Buys finished the game averaging 13 points for Payson, with Micah Swasey chipping in 12.
Pine View’s Caleb Schmitt led all scorers with 15 points.
With the win, Payson advances to face the Hurricane in Friday’s semifinal at 7:30 p.m.
Mitchell is confident in how his team will play with the quick turnaround, having enjoyed success in a similar format in Las Vegas back in December.
“We went to the Tarkanian classic over Christmas, and it’s four games in a row, and it seemed like we played better every single game. Hopefully that experience will carry through,” said Mitchell.
Green Canyon 64, Timpanogos 51
Top-seed Green Canyon looked totally at ease playing as the tournament favorite in Thursday’s 4A quarterfinals at SUU.
The Wolves jumped out fast and never trailed, rolling to the 64-51 win over No. 9 seed Timpanogos as they chased the first state championship in the school’s brief eight-year history.
Green Canyon didn’t shoot well from 3-point range, but coach Logan Brown said his team did just everything else right in the victory.
“We’re just a very process-oriented team. I thought our kids came in with a great mindset of how we’re going to approach playing in this arena and playing in this tournament. We have a very mature group, so that helps when you have that type of leadership in the locker room,” said Brown. “Our kids deserve all the credit, because they came out excited to play, not nervous to play. They were ready to roll.”
Green Canyon only led 14-13 after the first quarter, but it outscored Timpanogos 19-4 in the second quarter to open up a lead that never shrunk below double-digits the rest of the game.
“I thought we did a really good job of just changing it up, but also just guarding our guy, especially on a night we didn’t shoot the ball very well, because we’re a pretty good shooting team. So when you can win differently, I think it says a lot about your team,” said Brown.
With the win, Green Canyon advances to face No. 4 seed Dixie in the Friday’s semifinals at 5:50 p.m. It played in last year’s semifinals as well, but lost to eventual champ Layton Christian 68-54.
The Wolves on Thursday got great balance offensively, which has been true most of the season.
Easton Stokes led the way with 17 points to go along with five steals and five assists, while leading scorer Jude Haigh added 16 points despite just 1-of-10 shooting from 3.
Gavin Crane chipped in with 12 points as Green Canyon improved to 24-1 on the season with the win.
“That been our identity all year. We talk a lot about the best part about our team is the team, because there’s five guys on the floor at all times that can score, five guys that can execute, five guys that can guard. And when you have that, you’ve got synergy, you’ve got a connection. And we demonstrated that tonight, especially on a night where, really, I don’t think we played our best offense, but our defense as well,” said Brown.
Green Canyon only made 2 of 15 3-pointers on Thursday, way below its average of 7.5 3s per game.
Haigh accounted for nine of those misses as Green Canyon’s leading scorer has been hot and cold at times this season behind the arc. He’s proven to have a short memory this season.
Back on Nov. 26 he made just 1-of-8 3s in a 68-67 win over Morgan. In his next game he made 6 of 8 in a win over Hurricane.
Dixie 64, Cottonwood 54
As the SUU arena staff spent nearly five minutes cleaning up throw-up off the floor in front of Cottonwood’s bench, things seemed to be unfolding perfectly for a storybook finish for the Colts in the 4A quarterfinals.
With most of Cottonwood’s top contributors struggling with the flu — including Luka Cecez who barfed on the floor midway through the fourth quarter — the team still showed a ton of resilience batting back from a double-digit deficit to make two-point game with just five minutes remaining.
After the mess was cleaned up, Cottonwood had three possessions to try and tie things up, but the Dixie Flyers got a key stop each time.
A bucket in any of those possessions could’ve swung momentum No. 5 Cottonwood’s way. Instead, it gave fourth-seeded Dixie a couple more possessions to get its offense back on track, which it eventually did.
Dixie scored on its last five possessions of the game to pull away for the 64-57 win on Thursday morning.
“That’s what we kept talking about, was defense is going to win it. I think the biggest thing too in those time outs was that all that’s all we talked about was just getting a stop and five guys rebound and staying down, because we kept jumping a little bit,” said Dixie coach Tyler Roberts.
Dixie’s Kimball Carter converted a lay-up at the 3:08 mark to put Dixie in front 55-51, and then 30 seconds later Tyson Forsey buried a dagger 3-pointer to push the lead to three possessions at 58-51 with 2:37 left.
From there, Dixie worked the clock and got easy buckets at the rim to punch its ticket into Friday’s 4A semifinals against Green Canyon.
Jay Jay Davey had a huge game for Dixie as he scored 26 points on 12-of-14 shooting. That was a big story of the game, Dixie looked comfortable shooting most of the game, shooting 58 percent as a team. Despite the 9:30 a.m. tip off.
“I think the thing was, I got them up at early, we practiced, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, at 9:30 made them get up and just, I think that’s a lot of it, right, getting their clock kind of going, and understanding that we’re going to a big arena,” said Roberts.
Forsey added 16 points for Dixie as the he and Davey accounted for 42 of Dixie’s 64 points.
Cecez led Cottonwood with 20 points on 8-of-8 shooting as he fought through terrible nausea that finally got the better of him in the fourth quarter. John Rosevear added 17 points for Cottonwood.
The Colts seemed to run out of gas late though as Dixie closed the game on an 11-6 run for the win.
Dixie will carry a five-game winning streak into the semis, and Roberts really likes the way his team is playing late in the season.
“I’m actually really happy right now. You know, I think the biggest thing with this team is we’ve been hurt or injured all year, and we grinded and ended up getting the No. 4 seed, which has been awesome,” said Roberts. And then I love our side of the bracket. It’s always tough to play a region team that knows you. And so our opportunity to come in and play a team that hasn’t seen us was, was a good opportunity for us to kind of showcase what we’re capable of.”