High school boys basketball: Vikings find basketball legs just in time, beat Springville

SPRINGVILLE — A couple of weeks ago 80 percent of Pleasant Grove's starting five boys basketball team was wearing shoulder pads and helmets.

That might explain the rust with which the Vikings displayed for the first 16 minutes Tuesday night in their road game against Springville. But thanks to a strong third quarter, in which Pleasant Grove outscored the Red Devils 18-5, the Vikings were able to storm back and eventually pull away for a 72-58 win.

Only Pleasant Grove starter C. J. Wilcox, who burned the Red Devils for 32 points, wasn't playing football a few weeks back. The other four — Bryan Sampson, Dallas Lloyd, Sefa Tanoai and LeSean Wilcox — didn't pick up a basketball until mid-November after spending their entire summer and fall prepping for football.

"These guys didn't touch a basketball for six months so it might be January before we get our basketball legs under us," Viking coach Randy McAllister said.

But even though LeSean Wilcox and Tanoai are still getting their basketball legs warm, they still managed to add 16 and 11 points respectively to Pleasant Grove's cause. Sampson even chipped in eight.

Regardless, McAllister didn't blame his team's slow start as much on the football factor as he did the Red Devil factor. Springville, which gave top-ranked Lone Peak all it could handle last week, was all Pleasant Grove could handle Tuesday.

"(Springville) just played so good in that first half," McAllister said.

The Red Devils scored the final 10 points of the first quarter to take a 21-15 lead. Senior guard Alex Mortensen was a horse in the opening eight minutes by scoring 13 of Springville's 21 in the period. Three of those points came on a three-quarters court heave from the hip that banked in at the buzzer.

Mortensen, who finished with a team-high 20, cooled off in the second, but Dan Foster and Raul Delgato heated up to give Springville a 32-27 lead before a 3-pointer by C. J. Wilcox, who scored 18 in the opening two quarters, cut the margin to 32-30 at the break.

"We told the kids at halftime that we had to take away Mortensen and Foster and make them find other ways to score," McAllister said.