Skip to main content

Basketball Teams Finish Season

Apr 08, 2016 11:22AM ● By Bryan Scott

By Greg James | [email protected]

West Valley - The final horn has sounded, and the high school basketball season is over for another year. West Valley schools fell short of their goals but had important wins.

All three local high school boys basketball teams missed advancing to the playoffs.

“We lost a lot of close games,” Hunter head coach Rob Collins said. “When we started the year, we wanted to be realistic. We set a goal to make the state tournament, but we really thought we could win our region.”

The Wolverines lost 10 games by 10 points or less this season. They had opportunities to win each of those games. They were just two wins short of the playoffs, finishing in fifth place in Region 2. In their next-to-last regular season game against Syracuse, they fell behind 39-26 at the end of the third quarter. Hunter forged a fourth quarter comeback but fell six points short. This loss eliminated it from playoff contention.

Jaleel Holdford and Mckay Meidlinger led the team in scoring each averaging nine points per game.

Granger head coach Jason Chandler was disappointed early on this season. He said the team had several winnable games.

“We lacked some experience, but that is not an excuse. We really needed to out work the other teams to win the games,” Chandler said.

The Lancers finished the regular season with a 1-11 Region 2 record. Their only victory was by one point over West in January.

Anel Alagic led the Lancers in scoring averaging 9.9 points per game.

The Cyprus Pirates boys team struggled this year and only had two victories. The Pirates opened their season with a four-point win over Granger but could not garner any success in Region 6, finishing seventh.

Brooks Marshall led the Pirates in scoring this season with 13.4 points per game. The Pirates participated in two holiday tournaments this season; the Panther Classic (at West High School) and The Riverton Holiday Classic.

The Pirates girls team did not have much more success than the boys did. They, too, only won two games. Lomi Aiolupotea led the team in scoring, averaging 5.8 points a game, Ashley Flater had 4.6.

Hunter and Granger girls basketball teams both missed the playoffs. In a realigned Region 2 the Wolverines and Lancers faced a formidable challenge. Layton finished in first place in region and cruised through the state tournament to earn a state championship.

Granger’s girls finished the regular season with a 3-9 record in sixth place. The Wolverines were one place ahead of the Lancers in fifth finishing with a 4-8 final record.

Granger’s all-time leading scorer, Melisa Kadic, finished her senior season with 363 points and averaged 17.2 per game, Lizzy Peterson averaged 7.

Jennifer Burnham led Hunter in scoring this season. She averaged 12.6 points per game. Kimauri Toia finished with 179 points and averaged 8.9 per game.