Springville’s Booke Pennington, named the Deseret Information 5A match MVP, celebrates with teammates after Springville claims the 5A basketball state championships on the Marriott Middle in Provo on Saturday, March 5, 2022.
Regardless of the RPI rankings indicating that Springville was the sixth-best workforce heading into the 5A state match, everybody knew who the true workforce to beat was.
It was the workforce on a 12-game successful streak, the workforce that defends like offense is irrelevant and the workforce that’s been there, finished that.
Springville confirmed Saturday afternoon at BYU why it’s the perfect program in 5A, because it led practically the whole sport in a convincing 54-43 victory over Lehi for its second straight state championship.
After going 5-5 within the preseason — each loss was to a 6A workforce — Springville ripped off 12 straight wins to finish the common season after which backed it up with 5 double-digit playoff wins.
“I really feel like that second half of area we actually sort of hit our stride and performed good basketball and appeared good,” mentioned Springville coach Holli Averett, who now has a 2-1 teaching document in championship video games in simply three years at Springville.
“I’m so pleased with the ladies. All of the work they put in, offseason, throughout the season, it wasn’t simple. We’re at all times undersized. We have now no bigs, technically. They purchased into what we wished and so they performed laborious.”
The largest buy-in comes on the defensive facet, and no person does it higher than the Purple Devils.
All season they’ve made it tough for the opposition to get good pictures, and that’s exactly what it did to top-seed Lehi, holding the Pioneers to 44 % taking pictures and forcing 15 turnovers.
Ten of these turnovers got here within the first quarter as Springville opened up a 10-point halftime lead.
That lead by no means dipped under seven in the whole second half.
“We at all times come again to our protection. We mentioned we’ve obtained to amp up the D, be sure that we now have that stress, off ball D, on ball D, everybody’s obtained to be targeted, and I really feel just like the protection results in our offense,” mentioned Averett.
Springville didn’t shoot fairly in addition to Lehi, but it surely had 9 extra area purpose makes an attempt because it loved a 12-4 edge in offensive rebounding and a 15-11 edge in turnovers compelled.
Brooke Pennington, who scored 15 factors, mentioned the second by no means actually appeared too huge after enjoying a troublesome preseason schedule that included Fremont, Lone Peak and Westlake — all 6A semifinalists.
“I believe with the ability to cope with adversity coming into the match is actually good. We had been down generally. They had been getting on a run and we had been in a position to pull it off,” mentioned Pennington, who was named the Deseret Information 5A state match MVP.
Kayla Porray led Springville in scoring with 16 factors whereas Ellie Esplin added 13.
Esplin and Porray had been the one returning contributors from final yr’s state championship workforce, however as soon as all of the newcomers caught on top of things, Springville grew to become too powerful for the remainder of 5A.
Lehi truly obtained off to an amazing begin on Saturday, scoring on its first three possessions and leaping out to a fast 7-2 lead.
Slowly, nevertheless, Springville’s stress began to get to Lehi. It turned the ball over on its closing 4 possessions of the primary quarter as Springville closed on a 7-0 run.
The same 8-0 run sparked by its protection within the second quarter pushed the benefit to 30-20 by halftime.
“Staying composed, not freaking out, they got here in and trapped and it was actually necessary to remain relaxed and play our sport,” mentioned Pennington.
Within the second half, Lehi was sharper in possession, however shot simply 36 % and will by no means chip away on the lead as Springville was in no hurry to play fast.
Within the second half, 18 of Springville’s 24 factors got here from the free throw line, and it completed the sport 20 of 27.
Maci Wall and Tara Smith each completed with 14 factors within the loss for Lehi, which was searching for its first state title since 1980.
Springville, in the meantime, has now gained seven state titles in class historical past and 6 previously 13 seasons.
Its 5 main scorers had been all juniors this yr, so Averett’s workforce might simply run it again with a 3-peat subsequent yr.
Deseret Information 5A women all-tournament workforce
MVP —Brooke Pennington, Springville
Ellie Esplin, Springville
Kayla Porray, Springville
Jamisyn Heaton, Lehi
Maci Wall, Lehi
Taylor Harvey, Bountiful