High school basketball: Hurricane gets monkey off its back by beating Juan Diego in 3A quarterfinals

OREM — When Hurricane star athlete Zach Sorenson wakes up each morning, his thoughts usually revolve around the same thing — the heartbreak he and his football teammates suffered at the end of last fall's state championship game against Juan Diego.

Hurricane had seemingly won its first state football championship in school history last November when Juan Diego ripped out the hearts of Hurricane's players with a hail-mary touchdown as time expired.

Thirty-three of the 35 players in Hurricane's basketball program played on Hurricane's football team, so when the Tigers realized they were gonna face Juan Diego in the quarterfinal round of the 3A basketball tournament this week, they knew it was a chance to get a huge monkey off their back.

That's exactly what happened.

Forward Jaden Seely scored a game-high 16 points, Sorenson added nine and the Tigers jumped all over Juan Diego early to post an impressive 60-49 quarterfinal win Thursday morning at the UVU Events Center.

"I've got to be honest, I don't think I've gotten over it," said Sorenson of last fall's football defeat. "It's one of my first thoughts every morning I wake up that I could've been a state champion. So it was nice to finally get Juan Diego off our back."

Beating Juan Diego's basketball team in a quarterfinal tournament game is not the same thing as beating the Soaring Eagle in a state championship football game. But in Hurricane coach Gordon Dotson's mind, Sorenson's last point was paramount.

"They got the monkey off their back," said Dotson, who is an assistant on Hurricane's football team. "You don't ever want to have something in your mind that you can't beat anybody just because they beat you. I don't know if you wanna call it a curse, but they got the monkey off their back that they can beat Juan Diego."

Against the Soaring Eagle Thursday, Hurricane flew out of the starting gates early and then played solid basketball the rest of the way to post the big quarterfinal victory.

Behind the play of Seely, Hurricane jumped out to a 13-4 lead at the end of the first quarter and never looked back.

The Tigers led 23-9 at halftime and 40-21 midway through the third quarter before weathering a couple of Juan Diego runs to eventually win by double digits.

"From the get go, we just talked about how we were gonna put on the gas peddle right from the beginning and get after them because we know if we can get after them like that, it'll get us some big shots and we can pull away," said Seely.

Of course, it certainly helped that Juan Diego was ice-cold from the field in the first half. With Hurricane playing tough, physical defense, the Soaring Eagle made just one basket in the first two quarters.

Predictably, that didn't last in the second half, but the Tigers knew that would happen.