3A boys high school basketball: Logan gets physical in win over Cedar

WEST VALLEY CITY — Twenty-hours prior to his team's semifinal game with Logan, Cedar coach Craig Cardon acknowledged that the Grizzlies were probably the second best team in 3A after Bear River.

His hunch became official Friday night.

Logan's size was simply too much for cold-shooting Cedar to overcome as the Grizzlies rolled to a 51-38 3A semifinal victory at the E Center.

Logan advances to tonight's championship game against Bear River. The Region 11 rivals met twice this year, with No. 1 Bear River winning 81-64 the first meeting and then 70-67 in the regular season finale. That most recent loss should give Logan hope for making tonight's 7:30 title game at the E Center competitive.

"We're a very confident team. We've played them twice. We wanted this rematch in this game, we're excited to be playing Bear River. It's going to be a battle, Bear River's a great team," said Logan coach Jeff Brimhall.

Cedar had no answer for Logan big man Darrick McIntosh — until he fouled out with 1:26 remaining and Logan leading by 10. The senior finished with 16 points and pulled down double-digit rebounds.

"We knew we needed to establish Darrick inside early, he's a pretty powerful force in there," said Brimhall. "We felt like we had an advantage with Darrick in the post."

Logan opened up a 22-11 halftime lead capitalizing on an atrocious second quarter by Cedar, which made 1-of-8 shots and turned the ball over four times. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Jordan Roblyer and Kerby Olsen were the highlights of a 10-0 run by the Grizzlies to close the first half.

"We really wanted to get to an early start. We knew we had the experience, we've been in this game before, and we thought maybe they'd have the jitters if we started running on them and attacking inside, which it did," said Brimhall.

Cedar made just 3-of-18 shots in the first half, a far cry from the 12 of 22 it made in Thursday's dominant quarterfinal win over Judge.

Within the first two minutes of the second half Logan increased its lead to 28-11, forcing Cedar to play a bit desperate the rest of the way. On a night when the shots weren't dropping to begin with, chucking up more 3-pointers wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Logan maintained that 17-point cushion heading into the fourth quarter, but not surprisingly Cedar had one last run in it. By mostly ditching the 3-pointer and attacking the basket the Redmen clawed to within nine on several occasions in the final four minutes. They had several possessions to cut into the lead further but came up empty each time.

Both teams struggled with their free throw shooting in the fourth quarter, with Cedar and Logan each making only 11 of 19.

Logan guard Kerby Olsen wsa the unsung hero of the game holding Joel Einfeldt, the fifth-leading scorer in 3A, to just eight points.

E-MAIL: jedward@desnews.com