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OREM — The East Leopards escaped the Jordan Beetdiggers in a nail-biter finish for their first playoff win in over 10 years in the first round of the 5A boys state tournament Monday afternoon.
With seconds left to play, a clutch layup by 6-foot-10 senior Mikey Frazier gave East a 54-53 lead, and ultimately the win, over Jordan.
Jordan had two chances to win the game with 3 seconds left in the game, but a 3-point shot from Dyson Frank and a rebounded shot from Joe Dusma came up short, ending the Beetdiggers' state run.
“This is big for us," said head coach Mitch Smith. "We’ve won one playoff game in 10 years. They were a tough team, and we knew we were going to be in trouble because of their toughness, but we made some big plays."
East had the lead in the first quarter of play but lost that heading into halftime. The Leopards trailed the rest of the game by as much as seven points.
“We started off the game playing team ball," Smith said. "Some of the problems we’ve had all year is we try to hit home run plays. In the second quarter, we were shooting home run plays instead of moving the ball.”
East was led by senior forward and Boise State commit Frazier, who finished off the night with 17 points and six blocks. Sophomore Andre Mulibea contributed 15 points to help the Leopards take down the Beetdiggers. Junior Taylor Zwick finished with 14 points, including a key 3-pointer that put the Leopards within one point in the last minute.
"This game was going to be a fight," Frazier said. "Jordan, I give my hats off to them; they played so hard. They were tall, long, athletic, made it hard to get to the basket. They defend really well. This wasn’t going to be a pretty win, it was going to be an ugly one and we got it."
Jordan was led by sophomore Dyson Koehler, who had 19 points in the contest. But that wasn’t enough in the back-and-forth battle.
East moves on to the quarterfinals and will face the winner of Timpanogos and Roy on Wednesday at the University of Utah at 7:30 p.m. Lexi Lewis is studying public relations at Utah Valley University. You can follow her on twitter @lex_lew1018.
When you lead your team back for a first-round State tournament win: pic.twitter.com/UQtZLJTyJj
— Sean Walker (@DSeanKSL) February 26, 2018
