Provo 65, Jordan 41

TAYLORSVILLE — Provo's Lavender Briggs dribbled down the court, her eyes scanning the Jordan defenders backpedaling, trying helplessly to anticipate her next move.

Briggs drove past the 3-point line, put a spin move on a Jordan defender, and then casually pulled up for a soft 15-foot jumper. Suddenly all the Jordan High fans that had been cheering were silent. Briggs had stopped another would-be Beetdigger comeback attempt.

Briggs scored 24 points to lead Provo High School to a 60-41 victory over Jordan Tuesday in the first round of the 5A state tournament.

“I just know I have to show up to every game,” Briggs said.

And she showed up on Tuesday. Actually, she and her teammates showed up hours before they were set to play. Last season, Provo coach Amanda Barker saw her team come out flat in the first round in a loss to Viewmont. She didn’t want that to happen two years in a row.

Barker had her team meet at Provo High at 8 a.m. so they could arrive at Salt Lake Community College by 9:30 a.m. — five hours before their first-round game.

“Last year, I felt like we didn’t get here early enough,” Barker said. “I just felt like, especially with this gym and all the lines, it’s a harder gym to play in than I think we give it credit for. With a really short warm-up time, I just felt the kids needed to get acclimated to their surroundings.”

It seemed to work, despite a spirited Jordan effort, the Bulldogs were able to jump out to a 10-point lead after the first quarter. And then they just had to hold off comeback attempt after comeback attempt.

The final score may suggest that Provo had an easy time with Jordan, but the Beetdiggers were able to hit single digits a couple times in the second half and stayed within striking distance of the Bulldogs for much of the afternoon.

In the end, though, Jordan couldn’t find enough of an offense to make it a game at the end. The Beetdiggers shot just 25 percent in the game and were only 6-of-26 from the field. And with how Briggs was playing, that wasn’t enough.

Briggs shot 50 percent from the field and was 7-of-9 inside the 3-point line.

“Lav has the green light to do what she does best,” Barker said.

And on Tuesday, that was stopping Jordan rallies before they could ever really begin.

Provo moves on to play defending champion East High on Thursday in the tournament quarterfinals.

East 65, Bountiful 35

All season long, East High head coach Olosaa Solovi has reminded his players that last season’s team was the state champion — not this year’s.

But the 2018-19 Leopards sure looked the part on the first day of the 5A state tournament.

East opened up its championship defense with a convincing 65-35 victory over Bountiful in the first round at Bruin Arena.

The scary thing for the rest of the classification? East wasn’t even at its best.

“To be honest, I expect a little bit better than what we played today,” Solovi said. “We look a little rusty, we haven't played in a week. But I’m still proud of the girls to get a playoff win against a well-coached Bountiful team and we are excited about that.”

East started off a little slow, scoring only nine points in the first quarter and holding just a six-point lead after the first eight minutes. Once the second quarter began, though, East looked a little more like, well, East.

The Leopards outscored Bountiful 24-5 in the second quarter to blow open the game leading to the very lopsided contest.

Lealani Falatea led East with 21 points on 9-of-14 shooting and also grabbed six rebounds. Deserae Falatea added 15 points and four rebounds, and Margarita Satini had nine points and three rebounds.

“(Lealani Falatea) did hit some shots, but a lot of credit goes to our point guard, Margarita Satini, she’s the one that really guides our team,” Solovi said. “She does what’s good for our team. Sometimes that means for her to score, sometimes that means to hit the open person. Lealani is a player, once she gets open shots, she’s a beast.”

While the East offense took some time to get going, the East defense was dominant from the opening tip. Bountiful didn’t make a field goal until 4:55 remaining in the second quarter and ended up with just two made field goals in the entire first half.

“Give a lot of credit to Bountiful, they came out and played tough,” Solovi said. “Really we are just trying to focus on us. We know there are a lot of good teams; we are just grateful for the win.”

But as good as East looked for large portions of Tuesday’s game, Solovi knows things will get tougher.

“We have a lot of respect for a lot of these teams that are in the tournament,” he said. “And we know that we can lose to any one of them.”

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