High school boys basketball: Big first half paces No. 1 Davis to 6A quarterfinal win

Davis’ Jax Pearce goes to the hoop in a 6A boys basketball quarterfinal game against Westlake at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. | Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

Davis took a 19-point lead into the fourth quarter and then held off a late push from Westlake to advance to 6A semifinals

SALT LAKE CITY — Davis reiterated Wednesday afternoon at the Huntsman Center why it’s the best defensive team in the state.

The top-seeded Darts smothered No. 8 Westlake from the opening tip in the 6A tournament quarterfinals, racing to a 19-point halftime lead and then withstanding a late push en route to the 62-49 victory.

With the win Davis advances to the 6A semifinals against Lone Peak on Friday at 7 p.m.

“It’s been a rivalry forever,” said Davis coach Chad Sims about Lone Peak. “They obviously have a long tradition of successful basketball, and they’ve kind of been up and down but when they’re playing their best no question they’re one of the best teams in the state.”

Davis’ spot in the semifinals was never in question in the first half, and then only briefly in the fourth quarter when Westlake sped things up and cut the deficit to 55-49 with a minute remaining.

Turnovers played a big role in Westlake clawing back into the game, with Davis turning it over 18 times in the game.

“I felt like we stopped what we were doing in the first half, and they also turned up the pressure. We turned it over and didn’t play our kind of ball,” said Davis’ Trevan Leonhardt, who led the Darts with 16 points, six assists and six steals.

After the lead shrunk to six, Davis made 5 of 6 free throws over the final minute to seal the win while Westlake failed to score again.

Davis finished the game shooting 43% from the field while the Thunder struggled shooting just 37% and 2 of 18 from 3-point range.

“They do a good job running their stuff. We wanted to get them off their track a little bit, and make them have to make some plays in other ways than their offense. That happened the first half and got us going,” said Sims.

A barrage of 3-pointers in the first quarter gave Davis the early momentum, most the result of dribble penetration, but at the other end Westlake simply couldn’t get the same type of looks against the Darts’ aggressive perimeter defense.

Jake Sampson made all three of his 3-pointers in the first quarter as the Darts jumped out to a 19-5 lead. He finished the game with 14 points.

While dribble penetration led to kick outs and 3s in the first quarter, Davis did most of its damage at the rim in the second quarter with all six of its buckets coming on layups, most by Leonhardt and Jax Pearce.

Both teams’ offenses slowed a bit in the third quarter as Davis maintained its 19-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Getting stops defensively and forcing turnovers helped Westlake make things interesting late, but another key was how aggressive it was offensively.

“I thought defensively we had them on their heels a little bit, and then when they were able to get to the rim on us then it kind of took us out of mojo, we got a lot of buckets in the first half by steals and turning them over a bit,” said Sims.

After a slow started, Hunter Phillips turned things up in the second half for Westlake finishing with a game-high 19 points and 11 rebounds, with Noah McCord adding 14 points.

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