High school girls basketball: Bingham, Lone Peak bounce higher seeds to set up prevail in tight 6A semifinals

Here’s a recap of Thursday’s 6A semifinals at the University of Utah, with No. 6 seed Bingham winning the first game. This story will be updated.

Lone Peak 49, Westlake 44

Can we all agree that until someone actually demonstrates that it can beat Lone Peak in a playoff game in a college venue, it’s probably worth permanently penciling in the Knights as the No. 1 seed for the 6A tournament?

Two years ago when the Knights 3-peated as 6A champs, they did so as the No. 3 seed. A year ago during their 4-peat, they were mistakenly counted out by many as the No. 7 seed.

Fast forward to this season, and here the Knights are again, making a mockery of their seed and preparing for another championship.

No. 5 seed Lone Peak built a 20-point lead in the third quarter against top seed Westlake in Thursday’s 6A semifinal and then held off a furious fourth quarter push to secure the 49-44 victory and advance to a fifth straight state championship.

Lone Peak flustered Westlake defensively most of the game, holding the Thunder to 35% shooting. The Knights built a 40-20 lead with 3:20 left in the third quarter, but committed a ton of turnovers in the fourth quarter which allowed Westlake to cut the deficit to just four points with under a minute left.

Lone Peak made just enough free throws late to hang on for the win, as Charli Warner led the way with 14 points, and Maddie Pope added 12.

On the surface, nobody should be surprised, but this is a Knights team that dealt with a ton of adversity losing BYU signee Kennedy Woolston to a torn ACL in December, and it’s still pretty young as two sophomores and a freshman play big minutes.

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“With Kennedy going down, that’s a huge part of our team that we had to bounce back from that and kind of reassess our identity and figure out the differences that we needed to make to be able to still be successful. Not that the others couldn’t, it’s just kind of re-evaluate and be a little bit different,” said Lone Peak coach Nancy Warner.

There was probably a time in January when Warner wondered if a fifth straight state championship was even possible without Woolston, but to everyone’s credit the group has just stayed hungry — and was extra motivated.

“When you’re kind of counted out a little bit or ‘They can’t do it again,’ there’s something to be said about proving somebody wrong and owning that, so I think it is special to think about that opportunity yet again and I’m super excited for the girls to be able to be back there,” said Warner, who said without hesitation that this has been her hardest year coaching in 19 combined years between Springville and Lone Peak.

Lone Peak started a bit slow against Westlake on Thursday, struggling to make shots and falling behind 13-10.

But everything changed in the second quarter, with Lone Peak outscoring Westlake 18-2 — and 10-0 over the final 2:42 of the quarter — to build a 28-15 lead.

The Knights didn’t let up in the third either, as they pushed the lead to 40-20 at the 3:20 mark aided by strong 3-point shooting, finishing 7 of 14 for the game.

Westlake gave itself a bit of life by closing the deficit to 41-26 by the end of the quarter, but a comeback remained a long shot.

The Thunder upped the defensive pressure in the fourth quarter — which Lone Peak struggled with at times with seven fourth quarter turnovers — and suddenly a comeback didn’t seem quite so improbable.

Westlake opened the fourth on a 10-3 run to cut the deficit to 44-36 with 2:30 left, and as Lone Peak continued to fumble the ball away it whittled it all the way to 47-43 on a 3-pointer from Katie Cannon with 34 second remaining.

It was just the third 3-pointer of the game for Westlake, which finished 3 of 17 behind the arc.

After a timeout, Westlake forced another turnover and had a good look at potentially making it a one-possession game, but came up empty as the Knights were able to breath a huge sigh of relief.

With the win, Lone Peak advances to Friday’s 6A championship and will face No. 6 seed Bingham at 3:30 p.m.

Bingham 44, Syracuse 33

When Bingham’s girls basketball team strolled into the Huntsman Center for Thursday’s 6A semifinal, it was very much still buzzing from its come-from-behind win only 18 hours earlier.

Coach Hector Marquz told his players to feed off that energy.

“When you’re playing so late, it’s so hard to come down from that high. I didn’t go to bed until past 1:00 and I still woke up with a little bit of energy,” said Marquez. “When we came in, I said, ‘hey, that feeling that you probably still have, you got to ride it. You got to ride it.”

No. 6 seed Bingham rode the momentum from that quarterfinal win over Cedar Valley and beat No. 2 seed Syracuse 44-34 in Thursday’s semifinals to advance to its first state championship game since 2020.

It will face the winner of the Lone Peak-Westlake game at 3:30 p.m.

It wasn’t long ago that Bingham was a regular in the 6A state championship, appearing in three-straight title games from 2018-2020, winning twice.

Bingham reached the semifinals last season, losing to region foe Copper Hills.

It got over the hump in this year’s semis buoyed by a big fourth quarter.

In a game that was tied 20-20 at the half and then 29-29 after three, Bingham methodically pulled away in the fourth as it got hot from behind the arc while Syracuse simultaneously went ice cold.

Lanie Smith made two of Bingham’s three 3-pointers in the fourth quarter as she equaled teammate Veanna Pau’u with a team-high 12 points.

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“Every coach wants their team to be playing well at the right time and right now that’s us and we got one more game and we’ll see if we could ride that high,” said Marquez.

While Bingham had its best quarter shooting in the fourth, Syracuse couldn’t buy a bucket going 1-of-13 from the field and 0-of-5 from 3-point range.

“I think the girls’ patience to wait for whatever the defense was giving us was the key. Our point guard was moving the ball around, we were moving a few different pieces around and in a zone, someone’s going to be open at some point. It’s just about being patient and waiting for it and our girls did that today,” said Marquez.

Bingham’s coach believes a tough preseason and the grind of playing in the toughest 6A region in the state prepared his team for this playoff run.

“Anybody from our region could win state this year and we were just fortunate to get a few more stops and a few more buckets than a few of those other teams and that’s why we’re here,” said Marquez.

Thursday’s win was a bit of a full circle moment for Bingham sophomore sharp shooter Laine Smith.

She started the first three games of the season, but in the fourth preseason game against Syracuse — a 49-45 win for Bingham — Smith came off the bench and made four 3-pointers and scored a season-high 17 points. She’s been Bingham’s sixth man ever since.

“Since then we haven’t really messed with her and she’s just been our sixth man and she’s great. We believe in her, and I’m out there yelling at her to shoot it all the time. So I’m proud of Lanie,” said Marquez.

Smith’s first 3-pointer of the fourth quarter pushed the lead to 37-31 with 4:22 remaining in the game, but it was corner three two minutes later that was really the dagger as it extended the lead to 40-31.