Taylorsville 56, Hillcrest 38

TAYLORSVILLE — Taylorsville senior Finau Tonga had waited a long time to see what it felt like. In each of her first three high school seasons, her team had made the state tournament. But Tonga had never made the second round — until now

On Monday morning, Taylorsville rolled to a 56-38 victory over Hillcrest in the first round of the 6A girls basketball tournament at Salt Lake Community College’s Bruin Arena.

“It’s great,” said Tonga, who finished with 13 points and 12 rebounds. “Four years, I never have gotten past the first round. It’s huge. I’m so proud of my team and how much progression we have gotten through the year.”

The Warriors overcame a slow start before going on a 32-6 run between the second and third quarters to build a huge lead.

And that slow start wasn’t entirely unexpected, though.

With the 9:30 a.m. start time, it reminded Taylorsville head coach Reggie Jewkes of all the Saturday morning practices. And that wasn’t a good thing.

“They are just rough, they are rough,” Jewkes said of those practices. “It takes them forever to get going. And I worried about that.”

So it wasn’t too big a surprise when Taylorsville found itself down 12-9 after the first quarter. But just like in those practices, the Warriors eventually found their legs.

Jewkes had her team go to a press to try and get the team’s energy up. And she also inserted junior guard Ella Huntington who gave the Warriors a much-needed spark off the bench.

Huntington scored 10 points in six minutes of play in the second quarter. And once she started going, the rest of the team followed.

“She has done this all season,” Jewkes said. “She never stops. She just goes, goes and goes and she sparks us all the time. … It doesn't matter what time of day, she brings the energy that we need.”

Senior Aubrey Yorgason was also key for Taylorville in its breakthrough win. Yorgason finished with 12 points and knocked down three 3-pointers.

“I think everyone was just nervous,” Yorgason said. “Once we finally realized that we just needed to play like we need to play, everyone went in and played their hearts out.”

And for the first time for this senior class, they’ll get to keep on playing after the first round.

Bingham 66, Layton 40

When asked about her team’s dominant presence in the paint, Bingham coach Charron Mason didn’t need to elaborate much.

“That’s good, right?” she said. “I don’t know what else to say about it.”

Actually, it was pretty much all good for the Miners on Monday. Bingham blasted Layton 66-40 in the first round of the 6A state tournament at Salt Lake Community College’s Bruin Arena.

Bingham went on a 14-0 run between the first and second quarters and it was a blowout from then on.

“I think we just played defense and tried to work together as a team and it paid off,” Mason said.

Ameleya Angilau scored 19 points, Maggie McCord and Madison Jones each had 14, and Samantha Holman added 10 for the No. 1 seed from Region 4.

The game was completely different than when the two teams played each other earlier this season. Firstly, that game was close. And second, the Miners lost.

Layton defeated Bingham 55-51 in December. On Monday, the Miners got to show just how far they’ve come since that day.

“We’ve worked really hard to up our game and be better and level up, so we are just trying to do our best,” Mason said.

They were pretty close to their best for large portions of Monday’s game. They controlled the glass, outrebounding Layton by 17. They forced 19 Layton turnovers while only committing three. And they used patience and ball movement to get Angilau a wide-open look at 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer — which she made.

And now that the nerves of the first game are out of the way, Mason even expects them to be even better.

“Everyone’s nervous, everyone’s excited, everyone’s 0-0, you know, the ball can bounce any way,” she said. “And we just want to be here and play, so we are really excited to show our stuff.”

Bingham will play Taylorsville on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Bruin Arena in the tournament’s quarterfinals.

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