Two underdogs and two favorites still alive at 1A hoops tourney

At the end of an action-packed second day of the 1A boys basketball tournament, two underdogs and two favorites are through to the semifinals. The underdogs – Bryce Valley and Monticello – will face each other in the first semifinal at 6 p.m. Friday night, and the favorites – No. 1 Rich and No. 2 Piute – will follow in the other semifinal at 7:30.
As always, you can read complete recaps of all the championship-bracket games – in this case, four quarterfinal stories – by navigating to our Prep page here.
Before turning the page over to tomorrow, however, here are some additional insights and observations at the end of what was a terrific evening of basketball:

Monticello and Bryce Valley don’t get the “underdog” label by virtue of their rankings – Monticello finished third in the Deseret News rankings and Bryce Valley finished fifth – but rather they’re underdogs by virtue of their basketball histories.
Monticello does have a boys basketball state championship to its credit – the Buckaroos won 2A back in 1994 – but the school hasn’t appeared in the second-to-last round of a state tournament in 16 years.
Bryce Valley, meanwhile, hasn’t appeared in the semifinals since 1992. The Mustangs have made three semifinal appearances in school history and have never advanced to the state championship game.

I couldn’t fit into print a fabulous little nugget that Monticello guard Steven Redd related to me after he helped his team gut out an overtime victory over Panguitch in the quarterfinals.
Here’s what Redd told me when I asked him about the fact that Monticello wants to accomplish more than just getting to the semifinals:
“Every day in practice we look up at the lone (championship) banner in our gym, and we’ve always dreamed about that ever since we’ve been playin’ basketball. The whole year that’s been our goal, and we don’t wanna leave with anything less.”
Monticello coach Rhett Muaghan told me as much when I asked about what it meant to the school to make it to the semifinals:
“It’s an amazing feeling for the kids, but I don’t they expected anything less. I really believe the kids came here to win a state championship. They came here; that’s what they’re lookin’ to do. So for them, I don’t think it surprises them (to reach the semifinals). It kind of surprises me, but for them, this is what they expected to do.”

The additions of brothers Kace and Kam Roundy to Bryce Valley from Escalante have obviously generated huge amounts of discussion throughout Class 1A this winter.
I’m not here to add – or take away – from what’s been discussed. But I thought this quote from Bryce Valley Eric Jessen after his team’s win over Tabiona was extremely interesting:
“One of the things that’s been special is we’ve had to work hard to gel together as a team because the Roundys moved in. It’s taken some time to gel. I’ll be honest – I don’t think we’re there. I don’t think our team is at its peak where we’re at our best yet because we’re still understanding better what each other can do. But we’re getting there. I really like that we’re gettin’ there.
“But I don’t think people have really seen yet what this team can do.”

Rich’s showdown with Piute tonight should be one to remember. On paper, it’s a tantalizing matchup, and it should be extremely fun to see how this year’s two titans of 1A basketball fare against each other.

I thought I had finished my final interview for the evening when I hit the “stop” button on my voice recorder after chatting with Bryce Valley sophomore Eddie Dunham about his game-winning block at the end of the Mustangs’ thrilling win over Tabiona.
However, as I was walking through a crowd of Bryce Valley fans to get back to my table to write my story, a young lady told me I should interview her.
My response? “Go and do something special on the floor,” I said, looking over at the court inside the Sevier Valley Center, “and then I’ll talk to you.”
I failed, however, to specify that I was talking about doing something special with a basketball.
So without hesitation, Sydney Cornforth stopped what she was doing and headed over to the court, where she pulled off an elaborate series of gymnastics tricks – “a triple back handspring ended with an aerial” is how she described it.
A deal’s a deal, and so I spent the next couple minutes interviewing Miss Cornforth, who, as it turns out, is the sister of the Roundy brothers.
Cornforth played on Bryce Valley’s girls basketball team this winter and was the Mustangs leading scorer at 8.62 points-per-game.
As was the case with every other person from Bryce Valley, she was thrilled to watch her boys team prevail on Thursday and make it to the semifinals:
“It was awesome because Bryce Valley hasn’t had very much success with the boys team, so to even see them win a tough game like that is good.”