High school basketball: Vikings notch upset victory over American Fork, roll into 5A finale

TAYLORSVILLE — It wasn't just another tough Region 4 contest, even though it might have looked that way to an outsider.

No, this battle between region champ American Fork Cavemen and the No. 4 seed Pleasant Grove Vikings was for a shot at the state title.

The two teams met for the third time this season with everything on the line, and though they'd lost two previous meetings with the Cavemen, the Vikings put it all together and did everything that was asked of them when it counted the most — in the 5A state semifinals.

It's been a long time since the Vikings have defeated the Cavemen, and Pleasant Grove coach Glenn Larson was glad his team had taken American Fork to overtime in their last meeting so his girls would have the confidence they needed to beat a team that's had their number for so long.

And through the first quarter it appeared the game might just go into overtime again, as the two teams were tied after one. But that was when Pleasant Grove took control and came out with winning on its mind, finally finishing off the upset with a 58-44 victory and a trip to the state championship game against Syracuse today at 11 a.m.

"They've won the state championship, and we haven't beaten them for a long time, but we believed we could beat them. We just had to remember to take care of the ball after we got the big lead," said Larson, who's now busily putting together a game plan for Syracuse.

"We've found that American Fork struggled against our zone. We stuck with it and it worked. They didn't get many inside shots," Larson added.

The Vikings built as much as a 23-point lead close to the end of the third quarter, but they knew the Cavemen would have a run in them and just had to withstand the pressure and not give the ball away.

"They're a team that can always come back, and it was a good thing that we had a big lead. We just kept thinking we couldn't let them come back against us like they did the last time," said floor leader Danyele Hoffman, who finished with 15 points, eight assists, three steals and a pair of treys.

The Cavemen did make their big comeback push in the fourth period and brought the score to within 55-44 when Amy Krommenhoek popped in her third 3-pointer of the game, but they couldn't manage anything else and watched Pleasant Grove pull away to victory.