High school basketball: Pleasant Grove girls complete sweep over Lone Peak

HIGHLAND — After a season-long roller coaster ride, the Region 4 race is no simpler to predict now than it was in the preseason. After watching Pleasant Grove sweep Lone Peak, Lone Peak sweep Alta and Alta sweep Pleasant Grove, nothing in Region 4 makes sense except to say that this region is loaded with five teams that easily beat each other on any given day because they are just so closely matched.

Tuesday night it was the Vikings' turn to waltz into the Lone Peak gym and take down the Knights yet again to finish off the season sweep of this week's No. 5-ranked team 56-47.

But though Region 4 has five teams that are in and out of the top five in 5A, it's tough for them to keep their position simply because they take each other down time and time again.

"This was a big win. If somehow we end up tied with Lone Peak, we hold the tiebreaker," said Pleasant Grove coach Glenn Larson, who also noted that the losses to Alta makes it very clear the Vikings do not want to wind up tied with the Hawks.

And really anything could still happen as the Knights are now 7-3, and the Vikings are 5-4 with both teams looking forward to more tough games along the way.

"Sometimes it's just about matchups," was Larson's only explanation for all of the hodgepodge sweeps that seemingly make no sense in Region 4 play.

And the match-up between Pleasant Grove's Jennifer Hamson and Lone Peak's Whitney Johnson came down to a mostly defensive battle for the two girls in the middle, especially in the first half as Hamson was held to a mere four points in the opening two, and Johnson only managed to score a single point.

Hamson finished with 14 points in the game after coming a little more to life in the second half, but Johnson's defense didn't allow the normally prolific scorer the position she was used to all night long.

For Lone Peak, Marquelle Funk took the brunt of the scoring burden, finishing with a trio of treys and 16 total points. Anna Hubert added 11, and Whitney Stevens dropped in seven.

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