|
Pleasant Grove boys started the night a bit perplexed by the Timberwolves defense.
Pressuring the guards the whole length of the court, Timpanogos (7-10, 3-4) jumped out to an early first quarter lead with the Vikings (16-2, 6-1) trying to play catch-up in a rowdy 86-71 win.
"You know what, they came out with that half-court trap and I think that our guys weren't quite ready for it, said Pleasant Grove head coach Randy McAllister. "They were really aggressive; reaching for every ball and we just weren't taking care of the ball."
The quick hands of the Timpanogos players disrupted passes and offensive rhythm but a spectacular two-step dunk from Viking CJ Wilcox made the hometown fans erupt with their team scoring follow suit.
"That was definitely a highlight play," McAllister said. "You know what we feed of that. We tried to play with energy and when it wasn't there it takes a play like that to get us going. And it did."
CJ's dunk led a 13-8 swing in scoring to give the Vikings the lead, which they never relinquished the rest of the night.
The Vikings started the second half up 41-34, and never looked back.
Junior LeSean Wilcox lead the team with 16 points including clutch free throw shooting in the waning minutes.
Scoring was not P.G.'s problem. Stopping Timpanogos senior Skyler Halford who scored the game-high 31 points in the T'Wolves loss.
Including three 3-pointers, Harford frequently found the bottom of the basket in the early run that Timpanogos enjoyed. His scoring was limited slightly in the second half when the Vikings stuck CJ Wilcox on the T'Wolves' scoring machine.
"The key for us was putting CJ on Halford," McAllister said. "I think his (Wilcox) length really gave Halford an extra thing to worry about and he didn't score as many; he normally scores 35 on us."
Well, the 4 point difference might not of been the difference, but the Viking's enjoying five players in double digit scoring definitely was.
TIMPANOGOS (71)
Halford 31, Thomas 12, Blake 11, Willman 6, Brown 6, Ritter 5. 27 11-20 71.
PLEASANT GROVE (86)
L. Wilcox 16, C.J. Wilcox 14, Thurgood 14, M. Nielsen 14, Tucker 11, Tanoai 10, Allridge 5, Schleitwiler 2. 32 18-25 86.
Timpanogos 18 16 16 21 -- 71
Pleasant Grove 13 28 19 26 -- 86
3-point goals: Timpanogos 6 (Halford 3, Thomas 3), Pleasant Grove 4 (Tucker, Thurgood, L.Wilcox, Tanoai). |
