5A boys high school basketball: West Jordan's 'X-factor' spells doom for Davis

WEST VALLEY CITY — Following his team's quarterfinal win earlier this week, Davis coach Jay Welk acknowledged in his post-game comments that Jordan Weirick really scared him heading into Friday night's semifinal against West Jordan.

Welk believed his team matched up well with everyone else on the Jaguars roster, but he dubbed Weirick the X-factor. It turns out that Welk knew exactly what he was talking about.

Weirick was virtually unstoppable in Friday's 5A semifinal, setting the tone with 16 points in the first half and finishing with a game-high 23 in leading West Jordan to a convincing 51-41 victory over Davis.

West Jordan will face Lone Peak in Saturday night's 5A championship game at 7 p.m.

On a night when he was 9 of 16 from the field with seven rebounds and three assists, amazingly Weirick's coach had to cheer him up in the waning seconds because he missed two meaningless free throws.

"(When) he missed a couple free throws at the end, he's so competitive and he's down on himself, and we're about to advance to the state championship," said West Jordan coach Scott Briggs.

Missing a few late free throws was about all that Weirick did wrong in what figured to be an evenly matched semifinal game.

He scored West Jordan's first four points, then scored four more late in the quarter as West Jordan grabbed a 16-13 lead. He scored eight more points in the second quarter, including a breakaway dunk that came just seconds after a Davis timeout. That dunk extended West Jordan's lead to 27-18, and it never led by less than six points the rest of the way.

"We were trying to get it to him down low — we had some mismatches," said West Jordan point guard Mason Sawyer, who chipped in with 11 points, despite turning it over eight times.

Weirick did a good chunk of his damage with his back to the basket, one of the obvious mismatch areas that Welk was concerned about.

As well as Weirick was playing, Davis always managed to stay within striking distance. Even when West Jordan opened up a 41-29 lead early in the fourth quarter, the Region 1 champion Darts battled back, and a 5-0 run helped them close to within 41-34.

Following two missed free throws, the Darts had a chance to chip away at West Jordan's lead even further but committed one of their 21 turnovers.

Davis was within seven again with 3:36 remaining, but a technical foul enabled West Jordan to score four quick points from the free-throw line to sew up the victory.

"Being able to beat Davis is a credit to our guys and how far they've come and how much they've improved," said Briggs. "That's a heck of a basketball team we just played. I think we worked real hard, and we're happy with the outcome."

West Jordan's defense held Davis to 34-percent shooting while it knocked down 51 percent of its shots.

E-mail: jedward@desnews.com