High school basketball: West builds big lead, then holds off Cottonwood rally

SALT LAKE CITY — Despite the obvious negatives associated with nearly blowing a 19-point lead, West High coach Bob Lyman prefers to look at the positives of his team's 53-41 victory Friday over Cottonwood.

Sure, the Panthers' second-half inconsistency allowed the visitors to claw to within three points in the final minutes, but West came up big down the stretch, ending the game on a 9-0 run.

"What I look at as a negative, losing a lead and playing not to lose like we did, it's still very, very nice. A team will still grow when we win a close one. I really don't mind," said Lyman.

A loss could have been devastating for West's' psyche heading into the second half of region play, but by holding on, it now has a commanding lead in Region 2 with a 6-0 mark, while Cottonwood falls into a second-place tie with Murray and Skyline at 4-2.

"What we have to guard against now is overconfidence, cockiness, and we have to realize that teams are gunning for us. Everybody wants a piece of us now," said Lyman.

Cottonwood was one of those teams gunning for the Panthers, but that source of motivation backfired early. The Colts turned it over 11 times in the first half, shot 25 percent from the field and allowed nine offensive rebounds as West built a 27-8 lead at one point before taking a 29-15 advantage into the locker room at the half.

"We were a little bit more aggressive with our trap in the first half," said Lyman. "We wanted to make sure before they could settle into a groove, we were making them scramble and not let them get comfortable."

West maintained the double-digit advantage heading into the fourth quarter, but that's when something funny happened. Once the Colts finally started making shots, West panicked — odd for a team in the midst of a 12-game winning streak and almost always playing from in front.

Trailing 42-27 early in the fourth, Cottonwood scored on five of six possessions, including two 3-pointers by Arlen Smith and another by Tim Glenn, to cut West's lead to 44-39 with 4:09 remaining. After a brief scoring drought for both teams, Glenn made a pair of free throws to trim the lead to 44-41 with 1:44 left in the game.

During Cottonwood's critical 14-2 run, West turned it over four times, missed four shots from the field and two more from the free-throw line.