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TAYLORSVILLE — There was no panic in Viewmont senior Megan Carr’s voice when she thought back to the start of overtime of the Vikings’ Class 5A girls basketball state tournament opener Monday afternoon.
Why panic?
Mercedes Staples scored a game-high 25 points and Carr finished with 20 points and six rebounds to help the Vikings outlast Riverton 56-51 to move to Wednesday’s quarterfinals at Salt Lake Community College.
“I was very calm and I knew that we were going to be fine,” Carr said. “If we just kept doing what we were doing, we weren’t going to have a problem.”
If there was a reason to panic, it might have been early. Morgan Kane finished with 21 points for the Silverwolves, including a pair of free throws that gave Riverton a 36-26 lead with just under five minutes remaining in the third quarter.
But the Vikings went to work, outscoring the Silverwolves 11-2 for the remainder of the quarter to tie the game at 38-38, and the comeback was on.
“We just had a gut-check on the sidelines,” Viewmont coach Clint Straatman said. “We decided to pull more man-to-man defense, and we got away from it a little bit.
“But I think the girls looked inside themselves. I put it on them to step up their game, and that’s what they did.”
Viewmont also crashed the boards, getting multiple fourth-quarter rebounds from Melissa Sorenson, Tori Page and Samantha Hogge down the stretch.
Again, no reason to panic.
“I knew that we had it,” Carr said. “We just needed to calm down and get our act together. We just all clicked, got together and talked, and decided we were going to do this. We stepped it up and went.
“We decided that we weren’t going to let them keep pushing it around. We got aggressive and went after rebounds a lot. We rebounded a lot better.”
Carr scored two of her four points in overtime on the go-ahead bucket with 1:21 remaining, and Staples helped ice the game with four free throws down the stretch and pull away for the five-point win.
“I think they worried too much about her,” Straatman said of Staples. “Megan Carr is legit; she stepped up and played big. Then our team played great defense down the stretch.”
In earlier games, Pleasant Grove's Sara Hamson banked in a pass from Malia Brown at the buzzer to help the Region 4 top-seeded Vikings eliminate reigning 5A champion Layton, 33-31.
Sky View's Kylie Hale had 18 points, including four 3-pointers, as the Bobcats rolled Brighton, 55-30, and Bingham's Sierra McNichol poured in 21 points to pace a 26-15 second-quarter run to help the Miners pull away from Northridge, 69-48.
All games of the 4A and 5A state tournament are streamed on live.ksl.com.
Pleasant Grove 33, Layton 31
Sara Hamson banked in a feed from Malia Brown at the buzzer to help the Region 4 top-seeded Vikings eliminate the reigning champs.
Sky View 55, Brighton 30
Kylie Hale had 18 points, including four 3-pointers, as the Bobcats rolled the Bengals. Bingham 69, Northridge 48
Sierra McNichol poured in 21 points to pace a 26-15 second-quarter run to help the Miners pull away from the Lancers.
Viewmont 56, Riverton 51 (OT)
Megan Carr had 20 points and six rebounds to help the Vikings turn a 26-20 halftime deficit into an overtime win.
Fremont 53, Taylorsville 45
Berkle Lerohl score 13 points, and freshman Haylee Doxey addd 10 as the Silverwolves topped the Warriors.
Morgan Toluono led Taylorsville with a game-high 17 points.
American Fork 64, Davis 40
Taylor Moeaki scored 13 points, and Paige Farnsworth added 11 with three 3-pointers as the Cavemen routed the Darts for their 22nd-straight win.
Teulila Alofipo score a game-high 24 points with five rebounds to lead Davis, which was held without a field goal until the 7:12 mark of the second quarter.
Lone Peak 57, West 48
Savannah Flanary scored 18 points, including going 9-of-12 from the free-throw line, to help the Knights stun the Region 2 top-seeded Panthers.
Abena Bakenra scored a game-high 24 points with 12 rebounds for West, which clung to a 31-28 lead at halftime.
