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TAYLORSVILLE —Following his team's quarterfinal win on Thursday, Corner Canyon coach Jeramy Acker caught himself daydreaming a bit. While discussing his two Division-1 bound seniors, Kemery Martin and Jaeden Vaifanua, Acker wondered aloud: “Imagine if I had five of them.”
Two, though, was plenty Thursday, as the Chargers rolled to a 60-43 win over Farmington at Salt Lake Community College to advance to the 5A semifinals.
Vaifanua had 23 points and nine rebounds and Martin added 17 points and 10 rebounds. Megan Astle also had a big night for Corner Canyon, finishing with 13 points and six rebounds.
The game was a showcase of just how strong the Chargers are because of their star players. Farmington chose to take the ball out of Martin’s hands, sending double and even triple teams her way. But that just left Vaifanua to have the big night.
“They did a really nice job of game planning, but that’s why it’s nice to have Jaeden,” Acker said. “If you take away Kemery, then Jaeden gets to her spots … If a team wants to take away one, we have another one.”
Vaifanua was 9-of-14 from the field and was 8-for-8 from inside the arc. And her big night started right from the opening tip. Corner Canyon had drawn up a play to get her a look early — and it worked to perfection.
That helped set the tone for the rest of the game.
“That was beautiful,” Ackler said. “We just chalked that up just before. That was huge.”
Corner Canyon allowed Farmington to just 30 percent shooting and the way the Chargers defended made Ackler especially proud.
“It’s really fun to score a lot of points — it is,” Ackler said. “It’s not so fun to dig down deep and play defense, but that’s what I love. When I was a player, I loved playing defense. And we are buying in. We are hustling, we are switching the fronts. We are doing what we can to communicate and play together.”
And that togetherness started with their two stars on Thursday.
Vaifanua has signed to play at Wyoming and Martin will stick close to home and play at Utah.
“I’m excited to see what they do in college,” Ackler said.
But he wants to see them play for Corner Canyon for a couple more games first.
