It’s clear that Highland’s men’s basketball team is becoming accustomed to playing in the Jon M. Huntsman Center. Since a tough semi-final loss in last year’s state tournament, the Rams have made their way back to the University of Utah where they played the Bountiful Redhawks in the quarterfinals (who Highland also beat in the same spot last year) on Feb 25.
The Rams put on nothing short of clinic of what coaches want in playoff basketball. Where last year the Rams had a scare against Bountiful, they left nothing up to chance this year. With a comfortable 74-53 victory, and an earned bid to the state semifinals.
“It doesn’t matter if you win by one, ten, or twenty, it just feels good to win and move on,” Highland coach Chris Jones said.
Typically, the Rams bread and butter is the three pointer, but it was Highland’s dominance in the paint that stole the show, along with physically and mentally crushing Bountiful. Highland junior Soren Ries collected what seemed like every rebound, along with putting up handfuls of points in the post and a couple threes.
“I thought we played great… the only people that beat us are ourselves,” Ries said.
The Rams have the firepower to win a state title, which was proven by going 10-2 in the toughest region of 5A basketball.
“When we’re playing as a team and were hyped up, I don’t think anyone can beat us,” Highland junior Jordan Oberholtzer said.
The Rams came out of the locker room playing like that, which proved Ries’ and Oberholtzer’s theories as fact, because Highland pressed on the gas and didn’t let up for the whole game. Bountiful didn’t take the lead at any point in the entire contest. Highland played solid basketball in the first quarter and by the time the second quarter rolled around, the Rams looked like a well-oiled machine, and extended the lead to 10 at halftime.
Bountiful is no bad team, finishing with a 20-5 record and only one region loss, so it was generally expected that after halftime the game would slowly become less of a lopsided affair, but it wasn’t. The Rams came out of the gate punching in their most dominant quarter of the game.
“Making a solid team like Bountiful look like that,” Ries said. “It shows that our work is paying off.”
Jones’ team went back to their roots in the third quarter, and pulled the plug on an already struggling Redhawk squad by hitting six consecutive triples and jumping out to a 55-31 lead. Outscoring Bountiful 23-7 in the third and carrying all the energy going into the fourth.
“The Black Hole was incredible, they represented well,” Jones said. “Why wouldn’t they? They don’t have to be in school!”
The Black Hole continued its trend of showing up hours before the opening tip-off even if the game was at 9:30 am, and Jones always makes sure to give the students some love before and after the game. The energy was consistently loud and rowdy during the whole game, which drowned out a beaten and outmatched Bountiful student section.
After another quarter of Highland adding more salt to the wound, it seemed that every senior and JV player that traveled with the Rams got their time to play on a D1 court, a couple even scored some points.
Highland will look to continue its momentum heading into the semifinal game against fellow region competitor – Brighton High School. A team that Highland had a 1-1 record against this year. It will again be at the Huntsman Center on Feb 26 at 7:20 pm, and will be a chance for Highland to punch its ticket to compete in the state title game.
“Were going to go hoop harder than we have all year,” Oberholtzer said.
It seems the whole team is ready to complete their year-long preparation of fighting for the 5A hardware.
“All the work we’ve put in all year,” Ries said. “It’s time to go take care of business.”
