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TAYLORSVILLE — The 5-18 Springville Red Devils upset the 15-6 Roy Royals 42-32 in the first round of the 5A girls state tournament.
Head coach Camie Oakey used the movie “Rocky” to help inspire the team in this David vs. Goliath matchup.
“I’m a huge Rocky fan, and I gave them some Rocky quotes,” Oakey said.
The much smaller Red Devils came out firing. They used their quickness and cuts to get shots off against the length of Roy’s defense.
Springville started off strong, hitting four quick mid-range shots. It was a big contrast from the style of Roy whose offense is centered around feeding the ball to Josie Williams in the post.
Williams is a 6-foot-5 center who came into the game averaging 25.8 points per game and 11.2 rebounds per game.
The Red Devils had a balanced attack from their players. Breanna Eves finished as the leading scorer with 11 points, while Brooke Galbraith finished with nine.
Springville finished the first-quarter leading the favorite Roy, 10-8.
The low scoring trend continued in the second quarter. Springville fronted and doubled Williams in the post, but Williams was still able to score inside over Springville’s defense.
Despite Williams’ inside presence, Roy was unable to breakaway, and the game was tied 18-18 at the half.
UPSET: @SHSGBBALL stuns Roy 42-32 in the opening round of the @UHSAAinfo 5A state tournament. pic.twitter.com/VYEdHCSpAv
— KSL SportsBeat (@kslsports) February 19, 2018
The third quarter featured the Red Devils doubling and sometimes even tripling Williams in the post. This caused problems for Roy whose entire offense is built on their offensive anchor.
“We knew that Josie Williams was just an incredible post player and we had to just battle, battle, battle,” Oakey said. “But that didn’t start with Josie, that started with all their guards, and so our guard pressure brought the energy and brought the change, and we just executed perfectly what we wanted to do.”
Roy did not score their first point of the second half until the 1:16 mark of the third quarter. Roy only scored two points the entire quarter.
Springville made defense the focal point of their gameplan.
“We knew our offense would come, we went over a few things, but we knew our defense was key,” Galbraith said.
Springville took all of the momentum in the third quarter and finished the quarter leading 31-20.
Williams gained some momentum in the fourth quarter as Springville tried to milk the clock.
Roy cut the score to five, but Springville’s full-court defense led to some easy fastbreaks.
Overall, Springville’s defense and balanced scoring attack was too much for Roy’s old fashioned offense.
Springville continued to make free throws down the stretch, ultimately upsetting the heavy favorite by ten.
