Here’s a recap of Monday’s 3A quarterfinals at the UCCU Center in Orem.
Richfield 55, Union 41
Not many high school teams can win in the fashion that No. 3 Richfield did in the 3A quarterfinals against No. 6 Union. The Wildcats couldn’t get anything going, shooting just 38% from the field and 11% from three throughout Tuesday’s game.
However, Richfield managed to control the pace of the game with its defense and knocked off Union with a 55-41 win.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well at all,” said Richfield head coach Rand Janes. “When the ball is not going in the hole, you have to find other ways to to get a win. Defensively, we were able to do enough to make shots hard enough for them, contest enough shots and rebound the ball.”
The Wildcats came out incredibly slow, scoring just six points in the first quarter. However, Union wasn’t able to build any significant lead and only managed to go up by six. After the first quarter, Janes knew his team had to change how they were doing things.
“I told them to stop shooting threes and get it inside, because the way we were shooting, it wasn’t going to be very helpful for us to keep shooting it from out there,” Janes said. “For a lot of shooters you just have to get into the paint and see the ball go in the hole.”
Richfield turned things around, outscoring Union 17-9 in the second quarter for a 21-16 halftime lead. Once the Wildcats regained the lead, it never gave it back up.
The shots never truly came for Richfield, but it slowed down the game to a point where its lead felt more insurmountable than it might’ve felt otherwise.
Union pushed Richfield a bit with a 7-0 run to start the fourth quarter, but the Wildcats locked back in defensively and never allowed its lead to be in any real danger.
“It’s a credit to these guys of how well they focus on defense,” Janes said. “They like playing defense. It’s a chance for them to just get after and compete at a high level and we’re fortunate that defense is what they like to do. When shots aren’t falling, you have to find other ways to win and we did that with defense.
Judge Memorial 62, Canyon View 59
Defending 3A champion Judge Memorial had its fair share of tight games during last year’s state championship playoff run. So, when No. 2 Canyon View gave the Bulldogs a fight on Monday, they knew how to respond to secure a 62-59 quarterfinal win.
“Our guys have been through a lot just off the court,” said Judge head coach Sanjin Kolovrat. “We lost a terrific young man last summer. These guys have been through more off the court than most adults. We have a lot of respect for our opponents and a healthy fear of everybody, but our guys are are so weathered. They’re not going to be rattled.”
It was a back-and-forth game from the start, and neither team found any significant lead. However, Judge’s JJ Apathjang started to catch fire in the second quarter.
Apathjang hit multiple threes in the second quarter, including a buzzer beater to give the Bulldogs a 26-24 lead at halftime.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a player like him who just doesn’t do anything but play basketball,” Kolovrat said. “We haven’t had him for a couple weeks with a knee injury, so it’s great for him to be able to tough it out today and come back and be with the guys. The confidence he brings to others is pretty crazy. He’s special.”
Apathjang continued to be a thorn in Canyon View’s side with 17 second half points. He finished with 28 points and 10 rebounds for the double-double.
Judge also started to shoot better in the second half, hitting 4-of-8 from beyond the arc. With only three minutes left, the Bulldogs owned the largest lead of the game at 56-47.
Canyon View then went on a 12-4 run to cut the lead back down to one with 30 seconds left, and Apathjang fouled out in the final minute, putting more pressure on Judge Memorial.
However, Judge kept calm and held the Falcons off to advance to the 3A semifinals.
“Our playoff run last year was full of leads, blown leads, JJ fouling out, so this wasn’t new,” Kolovrat said. “We just had to trust what we do.”
Morgan 64, Emery 39
Defense got it done for top-seedeed Morgan Trojans as it dominated No. 9 Emery 64-39 in Monday’s 3A quarterfinal.
Morgan has been a dominant program all season. Its only loss was a one-point defeat to 4A runner-up Green Canyon.
Emery struggled to keep up with Morgan all game, largely due to the Trojans’ suffocating defense. Morgan forced 26 turnovers, while holding the Spartans field goal percentage to 33%. Emery only shot 17% from three in the quarterfinal loss.
“We want to put a lot of pressure on the ball and trap when we can,” Morgan head coach Scott Hunt said. “It’s been good for us this year. This state tournament, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but we thought that the pressure would would be beneficial today, and it turned out that we created quite a bit of problems for Emery with our pressure.”
Morgan made sure to capitalize on its defensive performance on the offensive end with high-quality looks around the rim and on the outside. The shots especially started to fall for the Trojans in the second half, with a 58% field goal percentage.
“We had a lot of good looks,” Hunt said. “We knew with their 2-3 zone, if we move the ball we should get some quality looks and we did. We got some underneath on the baseline as well as some good looks at the three and then on a high post. I thought our shot selection was really good and our ball movement was quite good as well.”
Trojan’s senior Kolton Asay was a standout with 21 points, five 3-pointers and five rebounds.
The only blemish on Morgan’s otherwise successful quarterfinal was its defensive rebounding. The Trojans gave up 12 offensive rebounds to Emery.
“We’ve been a really good rebounding team throughout the year and Emery’s got some size, they have some big kids so it’s something we’ll need to talk about,” Hunt said. “That’s got to be a a point of focus moving forward.”
Juab 59, South Summit 39
Last year’s runner-up, No. 4 South Summit, will not get a chance to avenge its championship loss as it fell 59-39 to No. 5 Juab in the 3A quarterfinals.
It was the Wasps' day from start to finish. They never let off the gas once they found separation in the second quarter.
Juab focused its efforts on a drive-and-kick style game, which allowed it to get quality shots at the rim and on the perimeter.
“We want to shoot the three ball, but we want it to come from inside out and get those quality looks,” said Juab head coach Kamron Wright. “Several times when we went on those drives, we just found ourselves at the rim and we were able to convert those. We did a good job with that today.”
Quality shots with its tight defense gave Juab a 34-22 lead at half, which South Summit never recovered from.
The Wasps also won the rebounding battle, 40 rebounds to South Summit’s 30, while picking off 14 turnovers.
“I think they did (rebounding and defense) really well,” Wright said. “‘Control what we can control’ has kind of been our mantra all year and they did that today.”
Juab’s offense started to struggle a bit in the third quarter, but its defense kept its lead strong. The Wasps allowed only 17 points in the second half for the dominant 59-39 win.
“We held a team with Logan Woolstenhulme on it to below 40,” Wright said. “My kids just did a fantastic job of buying in and coming out and making sure that they they did what we needed to do to try to slow them down. (Woolstenhulme) still had 18 points, but we made it a hard 18 points for him.”
Offensively, it was 2024 Mr. Baseball Austin Park that led Juab with 24 points in the quarterfinal win.