High school girls basketball: Maple Mountain advances in 5A tournament with a rout of Roy

The Maple Mountain Golden Eagles a relatively young team, with only one senior on their varsity squad. They struggled in the regular season, finishing sixth in Region 7 with a 3-9 record.

However, when No. 18 Roy visited Tuesday for the first round of the 5A tournament, No. 15 Maple Mountain dominated with a 69-48 win over the Royals.

“The thing is, our record doesn’t indicate how good of a team we are,” said Maple Mountain head coach Dave Lainhart. “We’re in a really tough region and we lost 10 games this year when we either had the lead or we were down by five or less with a minute and a half left. We were right there in almost every single game we played.”

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The Golden Eagles got an early lead Tuesday thanks to 3-point shooting and they cruised from there. Maple Mountain also sported a full-court press defense which gave the Royals a lot of trouble.

Roy turned the ball over 12 times in the first half, allowing the Golden Eagles to build dominant 37-15 lead at halftime. Maple Mountain ended up forcing 20 Royal turnovers throughout the game.

“That’s our identity,” Lainhart said. “We have to keep it a full court game and our region teams know that. We’ve been doing that all year. Sometimes it works better like tonight, and it worked out great.”

Offensively, it was Maple Mountain sophomore Leah Bailey who led the way with 23 points with four 3-pointers. Bailey also pulled in eight rebounds.

“Coach always tell us good defense turns into easy offense,” Bailey said. “I think we played as a team tonight. We came in and did what we needed to do. We moved the ball and just did what we needed to do as a team.”

The Golden Eagles pulled down 13 offensive rebounds to accompany Roy’s 20 turnovers and led by as many as 33 points in the fourth quarter.

Roy went on a 17-0 run as a last gasp after the Golden Eagles cleared the bench, but it was too late to make any real run at a win.

With the win, Maple Mountain advances to the 5A second round where it will face Region 7 foe and champion Wasatch. The Golden Eagles lost both matchups with the Wasps in the regular season, but Maple Mountain is staying optimistic.

“We’ve got to stay disciplined, limit our mistakes and play our game,” Lainhart said. “If we do that then we’ll have a good chance. They’re they’re a good team and the second seed for a reason.”