5A girls high school basketball: Bingham wastes no time in easy win over Layton

TAYLORSVILLE — While most favored teams earlier in the day struggled at least in the first half against lesser-ranked opponents, the Bingham Miners learned a lesson and came out firing on all cylinders, defeating the Layton Lancers 62-34.

After one quarter the Miners, Region 3's No. 2 seed, had rocketed out to a 15-6 lead over the Lancers, Region 1's No. 3 seed, and they just kept going as their lead at halftime had grown to 36-14 with nearly everybody getting into the scoring act.

Maddie Hind led the Miners in scoring with nine points in the first half, but seven players scored, and four had six points or more. They just played like a buzzsaw, ripping their way through every defense the Lancers threw at them. Layton's Addi Moore was the one bright spot for Layton, as she scored half of the Lancers' 14 points in the first half.

As he has all season long, Bingham coach Rand Rassmussen threw complete lineup changes at his team's opponents about every two minutes to help keep his players fresh and wear the other team out with the fast-paced brand of basketball. And when all was said and done, the Miners had pulled off the most dominating performance of the tournament.

But in true Rassmussen form he declared, "I'm never satisfied," when asked about how happy he was with his team's play in its first-round game.

The Miners go on to play Weber in the quarterfinals of the 5A tournament, joining both Riverton and Kearns from Region 3. They also made some teams around them take notice. They will be a team to be reckoned with as the tournament moves forward.

The Miners didn't let up in the second half, extending the lead yet again to 52-22 and making it difficult for Layton to keep its intensity up.

Twelve players scored for Bingham. In addition to her 12 points, Taeja Afalava added three blocked shots and two steals. Nicole Yazzie finished with 12, Hind added 11, and Malorie Dixon finished with nine. The Miners shot 49 percent from the field and outplayed Layton in every statistical category.

The Lancers only shot 20.5 percent from the field, but Addi Moore was 6-of-6 from the free-throw line and knocked down a trey to lead Layton with 11 points. Freshman Amber Daly came in late in the fourth quarter to sink the Lancers' only other 3-pointer of the game, en route to finishing with four points.

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