COMMENTARY – Monday Rundown on Tuesday? What has the world come to? Sorry regular readers, but I was incapacitated yesterday. But rest assured, there was plenty of important action over the weekend worth recapping.
Starting off with softball, Snow Canyon completed that rarest of accomplishments, a perfect season, by beating a tough 2A Enterprise team 4-3. How tough could the Lady Wolves be? Well, they beat Timpview, Cottonwood and Pine View by a combined 50-9 score.
The 20-0 record puts SC as the only undefeated softball team in any of the four Utah classifications that play softball. Playing in a tough region 9, with state contenders Canyon View and Pine View, makes the feat even more special. Brytni Gurney is no doubt the MVP, but this Snow Canyon team is full of stars (Hardy, Walton, Gates, Gates, Langston, Hutchings, and others). Plus, having newly named Snow Canyon female athlete of the year Autumn Shipp back, if only for spot duty, will only make the Lady Warriors even better.
My prediction: Snow Canyon will lose a game along the way, but will also hoist the 3A trophy. It’s so hard to stay undefeated against so many great teams. The pressure is immense. But this team definitely has the talent to win it all.
For that matter, if Canyon View can clean up its defense a little it also has a shot to go deep into the tourney and Pine View certainly could make some noise as well. Also, congrats to Hurricane for qualifying for state on the last day of the regular season, just beating out Cedar and Dixie.
In soccer, Thursday was an incredibly bright day for Region 9, with all four teams winning first-round games in the playoffs. Unfortunately, the southern Utah teams couldn’t repeat the feat Saturday, with Cedar, Pine View and Dixie all losing closely contested matches. Only region champ Desert Hills came out on top.
Defending-state champs Dixie, paired against undefeated Wasatch, fell down 3-1 at half, but stormed back to tie the contest at 3-3 before falling in penalty kicks after scoreless overtimes.
Pine View battled equally impressive Ogden with a single Tigers goal being the difference and Cedar also fell on penalty kicks after taking Park City to overtime with no score.
So the Thunder, with the 1-0 win over Juan Diego, are the only Region 9 representative in the state semifinals. Still, I like the Thunder’s chances. In the semifinals, Desert Hills plays a three-seed, the Park City Miners, who finished behind Juan Diego in Region 10.
The Thunder, 14-2-2, haven’t lost a game since March. Park City is 10-5-1. The two teams met Mar. 8 with the match ending in a 1-1 tie.
In baseball, Dixie was spared a play-in game (which probably would have been tonight) when Cedar lost at home to Pine View Friday afternoon. The Flyers committed three errors and gave up seven sixth-inning runs to Canyon View in a 9-2 loss. But perhaps Dixie’s most-hated rival, Pine View, did the Flyers a huge favor by pushing the game deep into the evening, where Parker Leavitt won it with a two-run single in the 10th inning.
So, the four Region 9 playoff teams are Desert Hills, Snow Canyon, Canyon View and Dixie. The top-seeded Thunder will host a playoff pod Saturday (DH’s first game is at 1 p.m. vs. Grantsville), while Snow Canyon will travel to Spanish Fork (11 a.m. at Spanish Fork Sports Park vs. Morgan), Canyon View goes to Park City (1:15 p.m. vs. Bear River) and Dixie heads to Stansbury (1 p.m. vs. Stansbury). More details in the W2W4 column.
There was a huge track meet at BYU this past weekend, with 60-plus teams coming from all over Utah (and some from Idaho) to compete in what is basically a tune-up for the state meet, which is May 17.
The thing I like about this meet is that all the classifications and regions (from 5A to 3A) were thrown out. It was simply a matter of who was the fastest and who was the best. To me, it was a legitimate look at how kids stacked up in the overall scheme of things. And we found some things out.
For instance, Brad Wulfenstein is a major stud. He beat everyone in the hurdles. And not just in one race. The Desert Hills senior won the 110 AND the 300 hurdles. He beat competitors from Bountiful, Weber, Westlake and many other large northern schools.
Other southern Utahns who did well at BYU: Brigham Whitney of Desert Hills was third in the 800 meters; Chandler Swaney of SH was third in the long jump.
On the girls side, Cedar finished tied for second as a team, thanks in part to speedy Kayla Shakespeare, who won the 100 meters. Other top southern Utah girls finishers: Aimee Bryson was second in the 800 and also second in the 1,600; Abby Taylor of Desert Hills was second in the long jump; Jodi Aitui of Pine View was second in the shot put; Megan Hansen of Desert Hills was third in the javelin; Cedar took second in the 4 X 100 and first in the sprint medley relays.
Region track is Wednesday and Thursday at Canyon View, giving athletes one last chance to get the minimum times or distances to qualify for state.
Speaking of region, girls golf and boys tennis are this week as well. The golfers will tee it up Wednesday at noon at Cedar Ridge Golf Course. Region tennis is Friday and Saturday at Canyon View and at Southern Utah University.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @oldschoolag
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.