High school boys basketball: Wednesday’s 4A quarterfinal recap, Provo, Dixie, Timpanogos, Hurricane win tight games to advance to semis

Here’s a recap of Wednesday’s 4A quarterfinals at Weber State, with No. 1 Provo, No. 5 Dixie, No. 10 Timpanogos and No. 6 Hurricane advancing.

Hurricane 60, Crimson Cliffs 49

The halftime stats largely tell the story of the 4A quarterfinal between Region 9 foes Crimson Cliffs and Hurricane. The Tigers had 13 points off turnovers, eight fast break points and 24 points in the paint.

Crimson Cliffs struggled to catch up and Hurricane advanced to the 4A semifinal with a convincing 60-49 win.

“We try to make things harder for them in the season to prepare them for this moment,” said Hurricane head coach Adam Stout. “You never know if it’s actually gonna work or not, and I think this time it did. I like who we have. We’ve just got kids that are winners, and so we feel like when the pressure’s on, when the stage is the biggest, they’ll perform.”

Hurricane’s early lead was built on the hustle stats. It outrebounded Crimson Cliffs early, forced turnovers, got in transition, and put up five more shots in the first half.

“I think a lot of that was just from them pressing us,” Stout said. “We’re not a big transition team. We’ll take it when it’s there, but I think they started pressing us a little bit, so we just took what was given to us.”

Tigers’ Brigham Kemp wasted no time getting the offense started with 17 points on 67% shooting in the first half. Kemp ended with 20 points, six rebounds, seven assists and six steals.

“Nobody else has a Brigham Kemp,” said Stout. “I know that’s early to say, but he’s just so dynamic in how he creates advantages and reads the game, and helps winning basketball for our team.

“He’s the heart and soul of what we do. We need him to play his best for us to win.”

The defense was equally as strong. Hurricane held Crimson Cliffs to just 22 points through two quarters for a 13-point lead at halftime.

Hurricane wasn’t quite as dominant in the second half, but it was good enough to keep its double-digit lead throughout the final two periods. Crimson Cliffs never held the lead.

Timpanogos 49, Pine View 42

Timpanogos trailed for most of Wednesday’s 4A quarterfinal against Pine View, but it kept grinding defensively and stayed within striking distance.

In many ways, it was a microcosm of the entire season.

Timpanogos started the year 0-8, but the players never got down on themselves as they showed improvement amid a difficult schedule. That same patience paid dividends against No. 2 seed Pine View at Weber State as Timpanogos rallied for the 48-42 victory to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 2018.

“It’s how we deal with adversity. And I believe that with every adversity comes the seed of an equal or greater success. And so we would talk about that after the losses. So we would look for the seed, the lesson,” said Timpanogos coach Golden Ingle. “And then if we nourished that seed, it could grow into a championship team. And I believe that’s the big difference now, we’re just showing the things that we’ve learned.”

The last loss of that 0-8 stretch to start the season was to Pine View on a buzzer beater.

Also in that winless stretch was a 59-56 setback to Juan Diego, the team Timpanogos beat last week in the 4A second round.

“We don’t believe in revenge, but we believe in paying our debts, and we owe them one,” said Ingle.

With the win, Timpanogos advances to the Friday’s 4A semifinal at 7:30 p.m. against the winner of the Crimson Cliffs-Hurricane game.

Forrest Corner-Bettweiser and Jaxen McCuistion led the way for Timpanogos in the win scoring 13 points each on a day when both offenses struggled to establish any rhythm shooting as both finished below 40%.

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Pine View led 27-22 at the half, and then with 6:00 left in the fourth quarter extended it to 41-34 on a corner 3-pointer by Caleb Schmitt.

That was the Panthers’ last bucket of the game.

Timpanogos took the lead for good at the 1:01 mark of the fourth quarter on a step-through lay-up by Corner-Bettweister. He extended it to 45-42 with 25 seconds left on another lay-up.

In between, Pine View had a chance to keep it close, but it missed four straight free throws at one point, finishing the game 8 of 16 from the line. Timpanogos was 11 of 12 from the line, and also enjoyed a 34-25 edge in rebounding.

Ingle summed up the gritty effort to advance to the semis as the “perfect imperfect game.”

Provo 71, Sky View 66

Whatever Chris Collinsworth told his team at halftime of Wednesday’s 4A quarterfinal should be framed and hung in Provo’s locker room permanently.

Because, it would’ve been easy for his players to feel 100% defeated trailing red-hot Sky View by 19 points at the half — and then 21 early in the third.

Teams down by 21 in the second half, rarely ever rally and actually win. They might make a push, but it’s tough to come all the way back from such a massive hole.

Provo defied those odds in stunning fashion at Weber State in the second quarterfinal game on Wednesday.

The top-seed Bulldogs didn’t take their first lead of the game until double overtime, but they never relinquished it after that in a wild 71-66 victory over No. 8 Sky View.

“It’s the greatest. It’s why you do it, honestly. I had zero intention of ever being a coach, and now I don’t think you could ever take me away from it because of kids like this,” said Collinsworth. “People ask me all the time, is it ‘X’s and O’s’ or ‘Bobbys and Joes?” It’s ‘Bobbys and Joes,’ man. They went out and they made plays and got the win, and it’s really fun to be a part of that with them.”

Sky View led 34-15 at the half and then 36-15 early in the third, but the momentum completely flipped sides after that. After shooting 65% in the first half, Sky View shot 24% in regulation and overtime. For Provo, it shot 33% in first half and then 55% after that.

As much as anything, Collinsworth said his team knows from experience that runs can happen in the second half.

On numerous occasions this year the Bulldogs had big leads and watched other teams make big runs — though they never lost one of those games.

“The reality is we’ve been up by 20-plus a lot this year, even 30-plus, and teams have made runs,” said Collinsworth. “So that’s what we talked about. We’ve been on the other side of this all year and we know, one, how hard it is to sustain that lead and that energy, especially if you get locked up because you have the lead.”

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Callen Tollestrup was the catalyst to the comeback, finishing with a game-high 33 points on 11-of-18 shooting to go along with his 11 rebounds.

His two free throws with 26 seconds left in regulation forced overtime, and then it was his corner 3-pointer with 14 seconds left in the first overtime that sent the game into double overtime.

“That’s such an impressive performance,” said Collinsworth.

Heading into the second overtime, Collinsworth reminded his players to attack the rim and not settle for 3-pointers like they did in the first overtime.

Makai Allen and Tollestrup did just that, combing for six points at the rim to give Provo the 66-61 lead with 2:00 left.

Sky View kept it close, and had a chance late only down 69-66. Provo’s Allen, however, stole the ball and converted a breakaway lay-up to put the game out of reach in the waning seconds.

Allen finished with 15 points, with Griffin DeMartini added 13. The two combined for 0-of-7 shooting from 3-point range as that was a real struggle for the Bulldogs all game. As a team Provo shot 5 of 22 from behind the arc.

The quarterfinal game was realistically worthy of a championship match-up, as the teams were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the final Deseret News regular season rankings. In the power rankings that seed the state tournament though, Sky View was a No. 8 seed — a brutal draw for top seed Provo for sure.

For much of the game it looked like Sky View was going to pull off the “upset”.

With the win, Provo advances to face No. 4 seed Dixie in the 4A semifinals on Friday night at 5:50 p.m.

It is Provo’s first semifinal appearance since 2012. The schools last state championship came back in 2008.

Dixie 51, Mountain View 49

Tyler Roberts chalked up Dixie’s 4A quarterfinal win over Mountain View on Wednesday morning to the “Fly Fam” mentality.

“You gotta trust your work, right? You gotta trust your teammates and you gotta trust coaches in plays and stuff and then just buying into each other. Fly Fam is what we call it. Where you buy into, it’s bigger than you, and things can happen if you just stay with it,” said Roberts.

Sticking to that process, even when a fourth-quarter lead had completely evaporated, allowed No. 5 seed Dixie to regroup for the 51-49 win over No. 13 Mountain View at Weber State to advance to the 4A semifinals on Friday.

Dixie led by as many as 10 points late in the third quarter, but turnovers allowed Mountain View to storm back and make a game of in the fourth quarter. Dixie finished with 16 turnovers for the game, which the Bruins turned into 23 points.

Mountain View tied the game at 47-47 with 1:50 remaining in the game, and then went ahead 49-48 with 43 left on a contested lay-up from Joshua Hair.

With only one timeout remaining, Roberts just let his team go to work offensively and it got a great look, with Mack Howard scoring on a reverse lay-up with 21 seconds left to regain the lead for Dixie at 50-49.

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“It was actually going to Colin (Simmons), and then Colin ended up throwing to Mack. He made a good cut, and then scored on it. It was a big left-handed shot too,” said Roberts.

Simmons had been the hot hand all game for Dixie leading all scorers with 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting, but in the big moment he trusted in his teammate who had a better look.

After a Mountain View timeout, Dixie’s defense foiled the Bruins’ action as Ammon Ashton stole the ball by stepping in front of dribble penetration.

“Huge steal, and that’s him. He’s always been that for us. Just does all the little things. He’s not a guy that scores a lot of points, but he’s our rebounder, our toughness on defense,” said Roberts.

With three fouls to still give, by the time Mountain View put Dixie on the free throw line, only 8.2 seconds remained.

Dixie only made 1-of-2 free throws, but then in a strange twist — especially considering time and situation — Dixie fouled Mountain View in the backcourt with just 3.2 seconds remaining.

Instead of the Bruins heaving up desperation perimeter shot to try and tie or win the game, the odds went way up as they stepped to the free throw. They missed the first free throw, which necessitate missing the second on purpose, but Dixie corralled the rebound to seal the win.

Mountain View only finished with three offense rebounds, which according to Roberts was the different in the game.

“That’s probably been one of our problems this year, really. In the Ridgeline game (in second round) we gave up 19 offensive rebounds. And to only give up three, that was one of our main focuses,” said Roberts.

Dixie finished with a 28-19 edge on the boards and outshot Mountain View 51.4% to 38.6%.

The Flyers advance to Friday’s semifinals at 5:50 p.m. and will face top seed Provo.

“That was our goal, just to get past this first win, because it is fun to have that day off and be able to prepare and scout a team and then be able to have a few more days with each other,” said Roberts. “it is bigger than basketball at the end of the day. Yes, we want to win, but just to have these seniors have that one last opportunity to come up to a state tournament in the semis against another good team.”