Skyridge continued its Region 3 revenge tour on Tuesday night with another impressive victory.
The Falcons raced to a 21-point halftime lead at Corner Canyon and then held off a furious second-half push from the home team as they secured the 69-60 victory.
After going 0-4 through the first half of region play, Skyridge has suddenly won three straight region games, avenging previous losses to Lehi, Lone Peak and now Corner Canyon.
Skyridge coach Jeff Gardner said there’s been no major changes in recent weeks to flip those losses to wins, but rather the team just kept learning and staying patient.
“You know, I think staying the course more than anything. We knew that we had lost to good teams and we were very competitive in most of those situations, and so it was no panic, stick the course and that was really our mentality,” said Gardner. “We just kept trying to do what we do well better, and just keep our head down and work.”
Combined with a couple of nonregion wins during this recent stretch, Skyridge has won straight and now sits a 14-7 on the season.
Ryder Gentry led the way with 21 points, with Carson Mosteller making half of his team’s 10 3-pointers in finishing with 18 points.
Skyridge will try and complete its Region 3 revenge tour this Friday when it hosts American Fork, a team it fell behind by double digits in last month’s meeting and never recovered.
The opposite game flow unfolded on Tuesday as Skyridge shot 68% in the first half and made eight 3-pointers in rolling to the 43-22 halftime lead over the Chargers.
It was as good a half of basketball as a team can expect to play in February.
“You know, the first half was one of those where we just played really well, we got baskets in transition and in our half court stuff we just did a good job of cutting hard, moving hard, making good passes and executing what we wanted to execute,” said Gardner.
Skyridge made 8-of-14 3-pointers in that opening half, and nearly half of them were wide-open looks created in the flow of the offense.
“Corner Canyon is such a good defensive team, to do it against them is even more special because you know Coach (Dan) Lunt does just a incredible job with his team on both ends of the floor and so it was awesome,” said Gardner.
At the half, Gardner stressed to his team that a 21-point lead against a quality team like Corner Canyon was not insurmountable. Sure enough, the cushion started to evaporate pretty quickly in the third.
Skyridge only turned the ball over four times in the first half, but in less than five minutes of the third quarter Corner Canyon’s increased defensive pressure led to four turnovers and quick transition buckets as the lead shrunk to 48-39 with 3:32 left in the quarter.
“They definitely put a little more pressure on us and their length caused some issues getting in some passing lanes,” said Gardner.
He knew his team needed a push back before the lead complete vanished, and that’s what his experienced squad did. Skyridge outscored Corner Canyon 7-2 to close the quarter to stretch the lead to 55-41.
“I was super proud that we were able to kind of stop the bleeding and keep it there, because if that thing gets back to four going into the fourth quarter, now it’s all bets are off,” said Gardner.
Ryder Gentry’s four-point play highlighted the spurt with 48 seconds left in the quarter.
Even though Gardner said a 14-point lead was far from comfortable, it gave his team the extra breathing room it needed in the fourth.
Corner Canyon scored on its first five possessions of the fourth to trim the lead to 60-53 with five minutes remaining.
The Chargers cut the lead to six points on two different occasions, and even had a good look at a 3-pointer with under 90 seconds remaining to potentially make it a one-score game.
After that miss, however, Skyridge took care of the ball and was able seal the win from the free throw line.
The Falcons did not turn the ball over once in the fourth quarter despite Corner Canyon’s frenetic pace defensively, which allowed them to work some shot clock and get quality shots in the fourth.
“We’ve got a lot of seniors that play that have a lot of experience, a lot of them played last year and that helps, they’ve been there, they didn’t panic,” said Gardner.