Riverton 70, Cyprus 30

TAYLORSVILLE — On Monday, Riverton coach Jodi Lee saw the team she was always believed her Silverwolves could be. Unfortunately for the Cyprus Pirates, so did they.

Don’t call it an upset. Because it wasn’t.

Riverton may be a No. 4 seed and Cyprus a region champion, but there was no doubt who the better team was on Monday night at Bruin Arena. In fact, in a day filled with dominating performances at the first round of the 6A state tournament, the Silverwolves may have been the most dominant.

Riverton ousted Cyprus with a 70-30 blowout victory.

How good were the Silverwolves?

• Cyprus had just three first-quarter points.
• The Pirates shot just 20 percent from the field.
• Riverton led by 23 points after the first quarter.
• The Silverwolves led by as many as 45 points.
• Seven Riverton players scored at least five points.
• The Silverwolves forced 26 Cyprus turnovers. And a reminder: Riverton was the No. 4 seed and Cyprus the region champion. “It was one of those nights where everyone was feeling good,” Lee said. “Those first five come out and kind of put that defensive stamp on it.”

The starters set the tone and everyone else was soon following along. All 15 Riverton players who entered the game scored a point with only one, Kaitlin Burgess who had 12, hitting double digits. The Silverwolves as a team absolutely blitzed the Pirates and Cyprus had no answer.

But the dominant performance wasn’t all that shocking to Lee, either. She has seen the talent all year — it just hasn’t always all come together. But during the practices leading up to the tournament, she saw her team start to click more and more.

“Anyone that has watched us all year knows that skill is not the issue,” the coach said. “We’ve got enough skill to play with anyone in this tournament. We’ve just had some chemistry issues and things like that, but tonight, none of that was an issue. And it was fun.”

Lee is in her first year at Riverton and she said that most of the inconsistency issues can be traced to that fact. It’s a team learning a new system under a new coach and it can take time to do that.

But Riverton sent a pretty strong message on Monday: When everything is clicking, watch out.

“When it’s right, it’s really right,” Lee said.

Lone Peak 54, Davis 37

Lone Peak’s Maddy Eaton often finds herself doing a lot of visualizing before games. She said she likes to picture herself in certain situations in order to get into the right mindset to truly control the game.

Leading into Monday’s first-round playoff game against Cyprus, Eaton could pull from a run to the state quarterfinals when she was at Maple Mountain for help in creating that mental picture. Most of her teammates, though, weren’t so lucky.

That didn’t seem to matter much. Lone Peak might not have had much playoff experience coming into the 6A girls basketball tournament, and even less success, but that didn’t stop the Knights from smashing Davis 54-37 Monday at Bruin Arena to advance to the 6A quarterfinals.

“I think today was a total team effort,” Lone Peak coach Nancy Warner said. “Scoring was pretty spread across the board, everyone shared the ball really well and we had a lot of assists.”

Eaton had 12 points and eight rebounds, Jane LeRoy added 12 points, five rebounds and three assists, and the Knights had five players score five points or more.

It was a dominant performance from a team that didn’t even qualify for the tournament a season ago.

“Coming off last year and not making it all, just to be able to get back here is huge for our girls,” Warner said. “A lot of them not having that experience.”

Warner has seen great success in state tournaments, having guided Springville to three state titles, but the Lone Peak program hasn’t had the same success. The Knights have never made it past the quarterfinals.

Could this team be the one to breakthrough?

“Anyone can beat anyone, in my opinion,” Warner said. “I have been on both sides of it.”

But while Lone Peak’s win on Monday was technically an upset on paper — the Knights were the No. 3 seed; Davis a No. 2 — it sure didn’t feel like one watching it. Lone Peak jumped out to a 15-6 lead after the first quarter with the help of a relentless defense that held Davis to just 27 percent for the game.

“Defense is where it needs to start,” Warner said. “That’s really been a focus of ours. ... They have really taken that to heart.”

And because of that, the Knights are on the verge of making Lone Peak history. That should be a nice thing visualize.

Lone Peak and Riverton will meet Wednesday in the 6A quarterfinals

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