No. 16 seed Timpanogos gave up one early bucket to No. 17 Sky View on Wednesday in the first round of the 4A playoffs, but the Timberwolves responded and then led the rest of the game to advance to the second round of the 4A playoffs with a 54-42 win.
Carson Thatcher started the scoring with a layup on the opening possession, but Timpanogos then caught fire from beyond the arc to take a 9-2 lead.
Jack Johnson, Steven LaPray and Jaxen McCuistion each connected from outside to lead the way for Timpanogos.
From there the scoring slowed down with only five points scored between the two teams the rest of the first quarter.
Finally Noah Curtis skyed for an offensive rebound and scored a putback layup to break a six-minute scoring drought.
Timpanogos head coach Golden Ingle said of the Timberwolves effort on the offensive glass, “That’s one of our core principles that we’ve focused on since the beginning.”
Timpanogos stuck to that principle Wednesday, with a plethora of offensive rebounds that helped it jump out to a 15-point halftime lead.
“If you miss a shot, when someone gets an offensive rebound, it almost feels like you didn’t even miss the shot. … So that definitely has been a conscious effort for us to attack the offensive glass,” Ingle said.
Johnson scored six points in the second quarter, and McCuistion added five more to help propel Timpanogos to the large lead at the break.
The third quarter was characterized by physicality and a bit of chippiness from both teams, as Sky View entered the bonus just 1:15 into the quarter, and Timpanogos just three minutes later.
Sky View took advantage of the foul trouble for Timpanogos, quickly cutting a 14-point deficit to just nine following five quick points from senior guard Bryton Williams, who finished the game with a team-high 17.
Ingle’s message to the team during this tough stretch?
“Good teams are going to be challenged, they’re going to have to weather those storms. Are we going to get bitter or are we going to get better?”
A pair of free throws from Zach Bentley, followed by a block from Josh Graf and a layup by Johnson brought the Timberwolves back to a more comfortable lead of 15 points.
Timpanogos was then able to weather a second storm from the Bobcats in the fourth quarter, as the lead dipped down to just 10 before a dagger corner 3-pointer from Luke Livingston and a coast-to-coast layup from Gavin Messmer allowed the Timberwolves to cruise to the victory.
A total of nine different Timberwolves scored Wednesday.
“It’s been the same story for the whole season,” Ingle said. “The star of the team is the team. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares who gets the credit, and that’s how this team is.”
Timpanogos hopes to lean on that very team mentality in the second round against a tough Layton Christian squad, the top seed in the tournament that comes into the game boasting a 22-3 record and has beaten Timpanogos twice this season.