2A boys high school basketball: Rowland Hall relies on speed to down Enterprise

CEDAR CITY — Rowland Hall came in with a determination to use its speed to overpower Enterprise. The Winged Lions decided the best way around the trapping defense presented by the Wolves was to simply outrun it.

At times, in the first half, Rowland Hall outran its own offense too. After seeing his team commit eight first-half turnovers, Winged Lion coach Shawn MacQueen figured those mistakes were the only thing holding his team back from blowing the game wide open.

"They force you to play at a faster pace than you want," MacQueen said. "That's their strength. We had to get back to doing what we do well which is executing and playing at the tempo we like to play."

Once Rowland Hall worked out all the kinks in the second half, they came at Enterprise with the speed of an oncoming train. Behind 22 points from Zach Arthur and 12 apiece from Jared Accettura and Felipe Saltz, the Winged Lions ran over the Wolves in the fourth quarter and cruised to a 62-48 2A boys basketball quarterfinal victory on Thursday morning at SUU.

It didn't take long for Rowland Hall to utilize its offensive speed to take charge of the game.

The Winged Lions used a 12-0 run to take an early 14-4 lead. Accettura fueled that run by hitting a 3-pointer that put Rowland Hall ahead and dishing out assists on a couple of other baskets.

Austin Moyle, who finished with 23 points to lead all scorers, helped Enterprise claw back into the game early in the second quarter. Moyle scored a pair of baskets which, coupled with two free throws from Kyle West, pared the Winged Lion lead down to two at 18-16.

The Winged Lions created some breathing room once again when Quentin Morse putback Zach Arthur's missed layup and Arthur followed with a pair of free throws to make it 22-16.

But Rowland Hall sabotaged its own efforts to extend the lead by repeatedly throwing away passes in an effort to implement an up-tempo pace.

When the second half rolled around, the Winged Lions focused their energies on controlling the glass and pressuring the ball. It helped Rowland Hall on the offensive end, giving the Winged Lions plenty of baskets from fastbreak and second chance opportunities.

"Once we were able to lock them down defensively, we were able to get whatever we wanted offensively," Accettura said.

And once that started happening, Rowland Hall found it easy to pull further and further away from the Wolves.

After West scored to trim the Winged Lion advantage to 38-31, Rowland Hall went on a 20-8 run to dash any lingering comeback hopes that Enterprise still harbored. The decisive run started on a jumper from Jordan Knoll-Marston that just beat the third quarter buzzer and ended on an alley oop dunk from Arthur.

The Winged Lions are in unfamiliar territory as a 2A semifinal participant. But they have no doubts about whether or not they deserve to go further.

"We didn't come here just to win one game," Accettura said. "We came here to play on Saturday."

EMAIL: jcoon@desnews.com