High school girls basketball: No. 1 Dixie, No. 2 Green Canyon survive semifinal scares to advance to 4A championship

Here’s a recap of the 4A girls basketball state tournament semifinals at Weber State on Friday, with No. 1 Dixie winning the first game to advance to Saturday’s championship. This story will be updated.

Green Canyon 54, Pine View 48

Much of the regular season was a cakewalk for Green Canyon, as its top 5 scoring offense and defense in 4A led to a lot of blowouts.

In fact, during its 14-game winning streaking heading into the playoffs, only one game was decided by single digits.

Playoff basketball is a different beast though, but Green Canyon is proving it can grind out those type of wins as well.

A day after needing overtime to bounce defending state champ Ridgeline in the quarterfinals, No. 2 seed Green Canyon showed grit in rallying for the 54-48 semifinal win over No. 3 Pine View at Weber State on Friday.

“Never an easy game, but that’s what you want, you know. You want those tough games,” said Green Canyon coach Kara Foster.

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In Green Canyon’s brief history it was 0-3 in semifinal games, but now the school will play for its first state championship on Saturday at 1 p.m. against No. 1 seed Dixie.

It will ride a 17-game winning streak into the title game.

“We’ll kind of come up with some stuff against Dixie and we’ve just gotta go in tomorrow and play. I think in-game adjustments as we’re playing is probably the biggest key for us tomorrow,” said Foster.

“If we can make those adjustments during the game, kind of see what Dixie’s doing and make those counters, I think that’ll play off well for us tomorrow.”

Green Canyon had a couple of brief leads through the first three quarters on Friday, but for the most part it was Pine View that was in control and dictating the tempo.

Everything changed in the fourth quarter though. Trailing 40-37 after three, Green Canyon exploded for a 13-0 run in the first six minutes of the quarter as 3-pointers from Mya Hinds, Talyssa Nelson and Kloey Tensmeyer helped push the Wolves lead to 50-40 with less two minutes left in the game.

Pine View responded and trimmed the lead to 50-45 with less than a minute remaining, but it simply ran out of time to mount a comeback.

“The thing with this group is they find a way to win. We played a couple teams earlier in the season that we kind of had to fight back from a deficit and so they’re used to it,” said Foster.

“They just kind of remain calm and keep chipping away and I was really proud of how they fought back.”

Hinds had a big game for Green Canyon with 22 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals on 4-of-6 shooting from 3.

Nelson also made 4 of 6 from behind the arc for 14 points, with Tensmeyer adding 15 points.

Tensmeyer only had two points at the half, but she got hot in the second half her team needed it the most.

“Anytime that you can get more than two scorers, I think it really stretches their defense to try to cover three scorers,” Foster said.

It’s a lot harder for them to cover, so it was huge to get all three of those girls scoring in the second half. It was huge for us."

Dixie 60, Desert Hills 55

For the first time in 13 years, Dixie’s girls basketball team will play for the state championship after winning an exhausting semifinal nailbiter over Desert Hills 60-55 on Friday afternoon.

Dixie coach Kasey Winters remembers the Flyers’ last championship well, as he was there. Granted, he was waiting in the tunnels at Weber State to coach the Bear River boys in the 3A championship immediately after the girls game.

Dixie’s girls won that championship over Desert Hills in a thriller, while Winters’ Bears lost.

The second-year Dixie coach is hoping this time he gets to cut down the nets on Saturday when his team faces the Green Canyon-Pine View winner at 1 p.m.

Advancing to the championship was an absolute grind against Desert Hills, which plays a relentless full-court game for 32 minutes.

“I think it just wears on you physically and mentally,” Winters said. “We just have to preach like it’s going to be that way the whole game.

“You can’t expect any breaks. You can’t expect to just be able to walk it up the court. You have to be ready for pressure and physicality for 32 straight minutes.”

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Dixie handled the pressure much better in the second half in a back-and-forth game that featured nine lead changes and six ties.

The constant pressure resulted in a lot of whistles, with 43 combined fouls and both teams dealing with foul trouble for much of the game.

Winters said the style wasn’t surprising, as it mirrored Dixie’s two region wins over Desert Hills earlier this season.

“Both teams are athletic, they’re physical, we both like to try to cause a little bit of chaos and ultimately it ends up in a lot of fouls for both teams,” said Winters.

Desert Hills dealt with the chaos better early on, jumping out to a 13-7 lead after the first quarter, but Dixie made a push in the second quarter to claim a 23-21 halftime lead despite a dozen first-half turnovers.

“We gave them quite a few possessions just because we weren’t tough with the ball and we weren’t ready for the pressure that we should know is coming,” said Winters.

It spilled over into the third quarter as well, with Desert Hills opening on a 11-0 spurt to build its largest lead of the game at 32-23 with 5:46 left in the frame.

“Yeah, it wasn’t our best start to the second half, but we knew there was a lot of game left and that’s kind of what we said in the timeout, is just have to stop turning the ball over, get a couple stops,” said Winters.

By the end of the quarter Dixie had closed to 43-41, and Audri Orton opened the fourth with one of her four 3-pointers to give Dixie the 44-43 lead.

The lead changed hands four more times in the fourth as the fouls and free throws mounted for both teams. Crucially, Dixie finished the game 19 of 26 from the free throw line while Desert Hills was 13 of 23.

Trailing 51-49 with under three minutes remaining, Desert Hills’ Ellie Heaton hit a huge 3-pointer to put the Thunder ahead and answer a big 3 from Dixie leading-scorer Izzy Hollinghead — her only 3 of the game.

Orton had a huge response a minute later with her fourth 3-pointer of the game, putting Dixie ahead for good 54-53 with 1:51 left.

She finished 4 of 8 from behind the arc with 12 points. She was one of four Dixie players who scored in double figures, led by Addison Winters with 15, Hollinghead with 14 and Lydia Shurtliff adding 10.

“I love seeing that four or five people in double figures. It means we’re moving the ball, we’re not forcing shots and we’re just playing good team basketball,” said Winters.

After pulling ahead, Dixie forced Desert Hills into three turnovers in the final two minutes and then it successfully sealed the win from the foul line.